Last year’s Pride Parade and Festival drew a colorful and diverse collection of participants. All are welcome to take part in this year’s event.
Celebrates inclusion and belonging
The Methow Pride Parade and Festival, a celebration of pride, diversity and love, returns on Sunday, June 26.
The event builds on a local tradition that started in Mazama in 2010. The celebration has since migrated throughout the valley, with events held every few years in Winthrop and then Twisp.
If you go
Parade and celebration: The Pride event starts at the Twisp Park at 10 a.m. on Sunday, June 26. The parade leaves the park at 11 a.m., proceeding along Glover Street to TwispWorks.
From 11:30 am. to 3 p.m., participants can enjoy food and beverages from the Old Schoolhouse Brewery Tap Room, the FORK food truck and Mountain Meals. There will be roller skating, games, a trashion fashion show, and a DJ with music, plus speakers and an open mic.
Trashion fashion: T-shirts from the 2013 Methow Pride event are available at the Thrifty Fox in Twisp for people who want to repurpose them, but any creative inspiration or material goes.
All are welcome at the Pride event. For information, email info@methowpride.org.
Paint banners and T-shirts: People can join community members to paint banners and decorate T-shirts and other garb for the festival at the OSB Tap Room on Tuesday (June 21) from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Methow Arts is offering a free “Paint for Pride” booth on Friday (June 24) from 3-6 p.m. at their Twisp office.
The very first Pride gathering was held in New York City in 1970, on the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Greenwich Village, when lesbian, gay and transgender people stood up to a police raid of a gay bar. While it wasn’t the first time they’d fought back, the episode sparked six days of activism and energized the movement for equality over the following decades.
Since then, pride events and celebrations have expanded across the country, and to the month of June, which is designated as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ+) Pride Month. Pride Month recognizes the impact and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals on history, culture, equality and inclusion locally, in towns and cities across the country and around the world.
It’s especially important to recall that history today, with more than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills — many targeting transgender people — proposed at the federal level and in state legislatures across the United States, said Reba Baudino, who will speak at the Pride event about the history of the movement.
The Methow Pride planning team sees the festival as an occasion to lift up our community and celebrate one another. “It is a time for inclusion and belonging,” said Colby Breed, an event organizer who grew up in the valley.
“Young people need to know they can be themselves. It is inspiring for us to see so many people, across age groups, come together in support of our LGBTQ+ community,” said planning team member and Liberty Bell High School student Melody Langan.
The event features speakers and an opportunity for participants to share their own experiences. “It will be a safe space to share stories and be heard, and to celebrate the inclusive community that we have here,” said Kelly Edwards, one of the event organizers.
More than 30 local businesses and organizations have stepped up to support the valley’s LGBTQ+ community and inclusion and diversity. Event posters and rainbow flags have been sprouting throughout the valley. People can get a Methow Pride sticker — featuring a design by Langan — by making a donation at any of the dozens of participating storefronts.
Major sponsors of Methow Pride are the Bunkhouse Inn, Copper Glance, The Courtyard Quail, Creative Gardens West, The Little Dipper Café & Bakery, Methow Valley Citizens Council, Old Schoolhouse Brewery, Room One, 3rd Avenue Salon, The Thrifty Fox, Twisp Daily Business and TwispWorks.
