Boone’s streets were filled with a vibrant sea of colors and large crowds on Saturday for Boone’s fourth annual Pride Parade and Festival.

The event was organized by Boone Pride, which is housed under the High Country LGBTQ Youth Alliance organization. The event kicked off at noon with a parade that started and ended at the Watauga Agricultural Center. Participants marched down West King Street, turned down Appalachian Street and Howard Street, turned onto Depot Street and finally, Poplar Grove Road.

One of the participants in the parade, Emily Beach, marched to show support and offer comfort to members of the community through the Free Mom Hugs organization.

“We give hugs to folks that are at Pride that may have not had a mom or dad hug in many years,” Beach said. “Our goal is to offer a moment of connection.”

Another attendee, Rabbi Cantor Jessica Fox of Temple of the High Country, attended to show support and allyship.

“Supporting the LGBTQA+ community is really important to the Jewish community,” Fox said. “We have many, many members who are part of the gay, lesbian, queer community, and we want to support them and let the whole community know that we are allies, and we are supporters, and that’s part of our Jewish tradition.”

Others showed their support by lining up along the parade route, cheering on marchers as they passed by.

Amanda White participated by watching the parade from Depot Street. She said this was the second Pride event she has been a part of.

“The love and the inclusiveness that is shown here is so empowering, and I’m proud that Boone has pulled this off,” White said.

After reaching the agricultural center, attendees shopped and conversed with over 40 local vendors. Live music and a drag show followed the parade.

Musical artist Mary Norris, who goes by the stage name Slow Funeral, was the first musical act to perform and performed an original song called “Purple Roses,” which she said she wrote about after finding family and support from within the queer community.

A drag show followed the parade. Drag queen Bubbles Liqueur hosted the set and introduced each performer. Among the performers in the lineup were Rhianna Luxe, Missy V Sour, Sinister Slaughter Van Dank, Ponyboi, Flame N. Fortune, Ms. Desilva, Dorian Grindr and Desiree Dik, who was featured as a headline performer from Washington, D.C. alongside local performers from Ashe and Avery counties.

During the first set, drag queen Missy V Sour took to the stage to share a few words with attendees, which she described as “diverse drag that matters.”

“You guys are so amazing, some of you drove an hour, even more, to be here today, so I want to say thank you so much,” Missy V Sour said.

Todd Carter of Boone Town Council and founder of High Country LGBTQ Youth Alliance said some of these local performers have only performed a handful of times due to a lack of venues, so he was glad they were provided with the opportunity to perform in the show for Boone Pride.

“They’re coming up, and they need to feel that sense of community,” he said.

Carter helped plan and organize the event, along with four other organizers and several volunteers. He said the celebration and representation of Pride has always been a top priority for him as a local council member.

“When I was elected to Boone Town Council, I was bound and determined that Boone as a town was going to live up to the reputation that Boone is a community,” Carter said. 

While Carter said he has attended larger Pride celebrations in other cities, he wanted to create a space for local community members to celebrate.

“We deserve Pride here, we shouldn’t have to go somewhere to celebrate ourselves and queer joy,” Carter said. “We have a lot of queer joy right here.”

Carter said he worked alongside Emily Brewer, who was the first chair of the Town of Boone’s human relations commission, to expand the event and its festivities. 

“It’s incredible to see where we’re at now,” Brewer said.

Though she moved in recent years, Brewer came back to Boone for the event this year.

“To be able to see that Boone can create the safe space that has grown each year, is one of the most valuable things I’ve witnessed,” she said.

Carter said one major area of focus for Pride was to move it from the sidewalk to the street as the event grew each year. He said that unlike many towns, Boone’s roads are owned by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, so in order to gain permission to block off the road for the parade, he had to create and pass an ordinance through Boone Town Council and send a letter to NCDOT requesting permission, which he received.

This year, for the first time, Boone’s Pride celebration had two Grand Marshals — co-owners of RiverGirl Fishing Co. Kelly McCoy and Renata Dos Santos. Carter described the marshals as “community heroes.”

“Nine months ago yesterday, something really, really catastrophic happened to our mountain community. Our Grand Marshalls, even though their business got destroyed, they turned their business into a community recovery and relief station for Hurricane Helene,” Carter said in his speech welcoming the marshals to the stage. “They are mountain warriors for our community, and guess what? We get to call them our own.”

Santos said while it was tragic to see the devastation caused by the hurricane, it was encouraging to see how it brought the entire community together.

“And that’s a great thing to celebrate,” she said. “So it’s been our honor to come here and be the first Grand Marshals.”

McCoy said this was her first Pride event she’s attended and expressed her excitement for the role as a marshal.

“I just want y’all to know, this is my first Pride parade ever,” she said.

Before they left the stage, Carter encouraged attendees to support RiverGirl. 

Kirstin Morgan, an App State assistant professor of criminal justice, also helped organize the event, and said the planning process started back in January and required a lot of coordination and communication.

“Boone is such a great community that people are so great to work with when we’re doing this,” she said. “The stage is a local company, the tent is from a local company, all the vendors are pretty much local Queer vendors. Everyone’s so big into supporting the High Country, and that makes it easy to organize.”

Among the vendors was the Queers for Palestine organization. Tamar June, who is with the organization, said the organization aims to represent Palestinian liberation and dispel misconceptions, highlighting the fact that queer celebration is a part of the Palestinian liberation movement. 

“Every single human being who lives in Palestine is under threat,” she said. “No one is free until we’re all free.”

Conner Ryan was also a vendor. His business, The Wild Fawn, aims to repurpose invasive species in an effort to tackle the invasive species crisis. 

Among the items he had for sale were homemade kudzu inks and candles made from thrifted teacups. Another item Ryan carried were bone bags, which contain incense cones, random assortment of crystals, teacup candle or railroad spike and ethically sourced naturally decayed bones.

“I try to give them another purpose, another chance,” Ryan said.

Current Mayor pro tempore Dalton George was in attendance and said he attended to show his support for the community.

“I think right now more than ever before, being an ally, showing up and supporting this community in particular here in the High Country in Boone is absolutely important,” George said.

Carter said seeing the turnout at Boone Pride was an emotional and rewarding experience for him, and expressed his gratitude that others can feel safe and included through local acts of representation, such as flying the Pride flag over city hall.

“The first year the flag went up, I got an email, somebody was visiting. And the mom wrote, ‘You have no idea how happy you made my son. He was sitting in the backseat and said, look Mom, look, there’s a flag. It’s OK here, it’s OK here,’” Carter said. “That’s what this is about.”