For six weeks in July and August of 1989, I attended the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts, a summer scholarship program for exceptionally talented high-school-aged artists.

This is me with my roommate, Marvin Askew. Living with Marvin was interesting for me because he is hearing impaired, which was something I had not previously encountered. I never attained proficiency in signing, beyond the basics (mainly "thank you" and "I'm sorry"). I really haven't heard from Marvin since Governor's School so, Marvin, if you're out there, please drop me a line, I'd love to know how you're doing these days!

There are also Governor's Schools for agriculture, science, international business, and several other areas of interest. All provide excellent opportunities for high school students to gain a working knowledge of their field before entering college, to meet students with similar interests, and to become public advocates for their interests. The second item (meeting others with similar interests) is of particular importance to crafting not only competence and expertise but also the will to exercise and exhibit that expertise: in high school, there is no surer route to becoming a pariah than to be passionately interested in and good at something other than whatever sport is in season. Hence, an outlet for those with similar interests preserves the passion instead of allowing cynicism and bitterness to dominate one's psyche.

In 1989, the PGSA program was held at Bloomsburg University, a small school in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, a quaint town (despite its prejudices) in the hills of eastern central Pennsylvania. Bloomsburg does have one spectacularly redeeming feature: it is home to the incredibly talented Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble at the Alvina Kraus Theatre (I used to have a link here, but it's currently dead... get back to me later, maybe I'll find their new website). Three cheers for surviving in something of an artistic vacuum! (Of course, while I'm handing out accolades for art, three more cheers for the Barrow-Civic Theatre in my hometown of Franklin, Pennsylvania. Okay, so maybe I have some bad memories of my hometown, but I do love it deep down inside. And these folks put on a helluva good show!)

Previous to 1989, Governor's School for the Arts had always been hosted at Bucknell University for all fifteen years of its existence. Since 1990, it has resided at Mercyhurst in Erie. 1989 was somewhat of an anomaly due to the fact that Bucknell's summer programs had become overcrowded and a new locale for PGSA was needed. Bloomsburg proved impermanent due to a number of clashes with the University administration.

This is me with three of my best friends at Governor's School, Bill, Ford, and Bhob (and, on the far right, me with my buff arms). Collectively we were known as "The Beyond" because we were beyond the reach of the law, not to mention common sense. If there was trouble to found, we were there, stealing those road-block thingies and putting them in dormitory halls, burning candles (what "no fire" rule?), visiting female floors, and (*gasp*) hoarding wheels in our rooms.

In this photo we are committing a most heinous offense, fire extinguisher theft, punishable by, um, well, uh... we are committing a most heinous offense! Later we slipped the fire extinguisher into my best friend Derek's bed to teach him a lesson about the evils of womanizing.

If you see any of these men, do not attempt to apprehend, or even comprehend, them by yourself. They are armed and goofy! Instead, tell them to check out this webpage and ask them why they Hell they haven't written me!

My sister, Brandi, who now lives in Alaska, is also an alumnus of Governor's School. She went to Mercyhurst for the 1990 summer program. Whereas I studied writing, she attended for visual arts. She's an incredible artist. In high school we both wrote for the high school literary magazine, Wordsmyth, and she also did illustrations. I loved working with her because she always knew exactly what images I had in my head when I wrote my poems and was able to produce the perfect illustration without additional instructions or explanations.

Governor's School essentially saved my life. Although I had a decent social life in high school and some memories that seem almost too magical to be true, I also many many tremendous emotional problems. I was prone to bouts of deep depression and suicidal tendencies, largely because I was trying to cope with being gay and in the closet in a very unaccepting environment, one of the drawbacks of living in a small town (especially in central Pennsylvania, where it is okay to impregnate your first cousin or sister or to belong to the KKK, but it is not okay to date someone of another race or to love someone of the same sex).

These are Milena, Merryl, Jen, and Megan (clockwise from top), some of the really cool friends I made in Governor's School. This is the "Spontaneous Obsession Advertisement" pose that incredibly fabulous people are apt to strike when pressed for a photo and when they aren't busy creating works of art.

Megan and I are cursed with fond memories of (gasp) Debbie Gibson due to the fact that on one "field-day" all of us artists at Governor's School were given a surprise trip to Knoebel's Amusement Park. She and I rode on an indoor roller-coster type thingy while being subjected to "Electric Youth." Okay, it's eighties cheese, but that's our bonding experience!

That reminds me... one day, the local theatre house gave us a free afternoon at the movies. They gave us a list of several movies we could opt to see, mostly Hollywood romances and action-adventure type things... what was our overwhelming choice? Peter Pan! It was so cool seeing that in a theatre packed with teenagers; certainly not the clientelle one would expect! I sat with Bill's (of the Beyond, and also my next-door dorm neighbor) roommate Chad. We were amazed to realize how our childhood memories had betrayed us -- Tinkerbell is a bitch!

At Governor's School, I realized that people come in all sorts of packaging and that that's cool. Not that I met any openly gay people my age. But I met two hundred high school students who were all passionately devoted to the arts, and most of them were social lepers for being "different" somehow. They were punks and hippies and goths; dramatic types and introspective intellectual types; they were graceful, lithe dancers and anal retentive musicians; prissy vocal majors who wouldn't wear pants that weren't creased properly and grungy scultpors who shunned bathing twice in one week. They were all unique, different, and special, and had hearts of gold. I realized that even though I was not like anyone else there, I was totally accepted for once, because we had our art and our open-mindedness in common. Suddenly it no longer mattered to me that I didn't conform to the norm: at least half of "the norm" are narrow-minded, petty bigots with nothing better to do than think of reasons to dislike someone else. Which I've decided is fine with me, because that's their loss, not mine.

Here we are again, this time smuggling Ye Greate Pizza Godde into Ye Fawlty Elevatour. The Pizza God emerged as the result of a bacterial outbreak in the town's water supply, which forced us to drink soda instead of tap water. Naturally, we complemented the soda with the best substitute for the cafeteria's food, pizza. (Not to mention the fact that we were allowed to take the pizza out of the room if we wished... try getting away with that at the Bloomsburg dining halls! Don't try to leave with an ice-cream cone!) Ultimately, the Pizza God was divided into four equal shares, one for each of the Beyond, and scattered upon the winds of the earth. It is prophesied that upon rejoining the quarters of the Pizza God, there shall be the ushering in of a great new era of Artistry and Mozarella.

So PGSA taught me how to love and accept myself by exposing me to the most diverse microcosm you could imagine. It also taught me how to hone my art (or craft, depending on what you think of my abilities). Poetry has always played a huge role in my life. As a teenager, it helped me to articulate my emotions in a creative manner and to work through my problems constructively and analytically.

When I later majored in English at Penn State, I maintained a 3.86 in my major (3.5 cumulative). I continue to write, although the poetry is not as prolific as it was in high school. For six semesters I was a columnist for The Daily Collegian at Penn State.

I also wrote and directed a children's play for the Penn State Thespians, which was the highlight of my fall 1996 semester. Based loosely on Jon Sczieska's The Stinky Cheese Man, it had references to Tennessee Williams, Seinfeld, the Brady Bunch, disco, and a whole lot more. The kids loved it, the parents loved it, and the actors had a great time.

Ultimately, of course, my entire ability to continue to create today I credit to Governor's School's positive influence on me.

If this isn't an inspirational story about why we need continued funding for the arts, I don't know what is. Oh, by the way, for those of you who believe that true art doesn't need subsidizing because the public will buy it on their own: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes (the greatest of the classic Greek dramatists) were all government subsidized. Their plays are still being performed and studied two after thousand years. In other words, they've been around for almost as long as Jesse Helms (who is also funded by taxpayer money, if I'm not mistaken).

Here I am with my sisters and with my best friend at Governor's School, Derek Zardus, on the last day when our families came to take us back. The night before was magical... we had a coffee house performance in which I dressed in the biggest fashion mistake of all time (a red suit) and played an original song, then we all went out and danced in the rain... a lot of us stayed up until dawn, although I wasn't fortunate enough to survive the night. Derek did try to wake me at one point in time to see the sunrise, and has (or at least had... I haven't seen him in years) a tape recording of me telling him (in my sleep mind you) to slag off in slightly less poetic terms; I don't recall the incident.

There were a lot of tears shed that day; I really don't think anyone wanted to go home. I certainly didn't!