|
|
SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO PRIDE 2008 ANNOUNCES AWARDS |
|
|
|
|
Monday, 09 June 2008 |
SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO PRIDE 2008 ANNOUNCES AWARDS
Contact: Char Ullman
(575) 522-5661
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Southern New Mexico Pride is pleased to announce that Alexis Blizman,
Executive Director of Equality New Mexico will be the grand marshal of the
Pride 2008. It has also announced the three recipients of this year’s
Pride Awards. Camino de Vida Center for HIV Services will be highlighted
for its’ work with community members living with HIV and AIDS, Eve M.
Adams, Ph.D., will be recognized for her academic work in support of GLBT
youth, and Carrie Hamblen and Tom Smith will be featured for their work
with Bus Stop Productions and for organizing Southern New Mexico Pride.
Alexis Blizman, grand marshal of Southern New Mexico Pride 2008, earned
her BA in political science at Wayne State University, and while she was a
student, became president of the Wayne State Young Democrats. Through
that work, she became active in paid and volunteer work on local, state,
and national campaigns. She received her JD degree at the George
Washington University Law School in Washington DC in May 2003. While in
law school she served as the Director of Graduate Affairs of the Student
Bar Association and the Chair of the Law School’s chapter of Lambda Law.
In 1999, she became a Democratic National Committeewoman and then in 2000
became a member of the Democratic National Committee’s Gay & Lesbian
Leadership Council. In September 2002, she completed a law internship at
the American Federation of Government Employees in their Women’s and Fair
Practices Department where she worked on prosecuting EEOC discrimination
claims. In October 2003, Blizman joined the Law Offices of Brian J. Moran
in Alexandria, VA as an associate attorney where she worked in the fields
of Domestic Relations, Civil Litigation, Criminal and Business Law. During
this time, she remained committed to the political process, volunteering
on several campaigns, working with GAYLAW, and continuing to serve the
Young Democrats of America as their General Counsel.
Blizman took the position as Executive Director of Equality New Mexico in
August of 2005. Equality New Mexico was founded in 1993 to create a
statewide vision for gay and lesbian civil/human rights and to provide a
unified political voice for New Mexico's gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender communities. In the spring of 2003, EQNM helped win passage
of a Hate Crimes Act and an amendment to the Human Rights Act making New
Mexico one of the first states in the U.S. to include both gender identity
and sexual orientation in both of these laws. Equality New Mexico is an
advocacy organization that uses both community outreach and the political
process to promote civil rights, to end discrimination, and to further the
general welfare of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities
in New Mexico. To that end, Equality New Mexico educates, organizes and
advocates for full human and civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender New Mexicans and their allies.
.
The first Pride Award goes to Camino de Vida Center for HIV Services. The
center, founded in 1999, is a non-profit organization dedicated to
providing comprehensive care to persons impacted by HIV/AIDS and to
connect people in our community with prevention, education, medical care,
and support services that promote better health and well-being in the
Southern New Mexico area.
Camino de Vida is part of the New Mexico Department of Health's regional
HIV Health Management Alliance, serving Catron, Doña Ana, Grant, Hidalgo,
Luna, Otero, Sierra, Socorro, Lincoln, and Torrance counties. In 2007,
Camino de Vida served 202 clients.
The next Pride Award goes to Eve Adams, Ph.D., Associate Professor and
Director of Training for the Counseling Psychology Ph.D. Program at New
Mexico State University. Eve has worked to improve the lives of LGBT
individuals through psychological services and research at Ohio Wesleyan
University, Ohio State University, the University of Akron, as well as
NMSU. She has been a board member of PFLAG from 2001-2007 and she helped
found Somos Familia, a same-sex parenting support group. Eve, her partner
of 23 years, Betsy, and their son Jesse look forward to the day that their
family enjoys the same legal protections as heterosexual families.
The final Pride Award goes to Carrie Hamblen and Tom Smith. Carrie
Hamblen is an award-winning producer, interviewer, Morning Edition host,
and operations manager for KRWG-FM, the public radio affiliate at New
Mexico State University. She teaches college classes in public speaking
and radio production. She has served on the PFLAG Dona Ana Chapter for
eight years, working to advance the rights and protections for LBGT
members in the community. She has served on panels for diversity training
at the university as well as the local police academy, and has mediated
town hall meetings and discussion panels. Carrie was part of a LBGT
faculty and staff group at NMSU who lobbied for to get domestic partner
benefits at the University, and those benefits were achieved in 2005. This
step resulted in the City of Las Cruces offering domestic partnership
benefits to all its’ employees two years ago. She has also served on the
Southern New Mexico Pride Board for two years. Together with Tom Smith,
Carrie co-founded Bus Stop Productions, which will present the city of Las
Cruces with a bus shelter celebrating sexual orientation diversity later
this summer.
Tom Smith moved to Las Cruces in 1999 from Seattle, Washington. Since
that time, he has served the gay community of Southern New Mexico through
gay-themed plays he has directed locally, through service to organizations
such as co-chairing the annual Southern NM Pride Parade and Picnic for the
past two years, and volunteering with organizations such as PFLAG. This
year, Tom won the Social Justice award from NMSU's Dept. of Government,
honoring his work on GLBT causes.
The Southern New Mexico Pride Awards will be presented at the Pride Parade
and Picnic, on Saturday, June 21, at Pioneer Women’s Park, 500 W. Las
Cruces Blvd. The event will be held from 10 AM until 3 PM
|
|
