30 Years of NC Pride

By Alex Granados,

Published September 23, 2011 at 12:38 PM EDT

Attendees of this weekend's NC Pride parade and festival will have a lot on their minds, including North Carolina's proposed same-sex marriage amendment and the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." The event has grown steadily since its beginning in 1981, and now represents one of the best opportunities for North Carolina's LGBT communities to get together for celebration and contemplation. Host Frank Stasio talks about some of the issues facing gays and lesbians today with Steven Petrow, author of the book, "Complete Gay & Lesbian Manners: The Definitive Guide to LGBT Life" (Workman Publishing Company/2011); Pam Spaulding, editor and publisher of the LGBT advocacy blog, “Pam’s House Blend”; Reverend Brett Webb-Mitchell, a former pastor and visiting faculty at North Carolina Central University; and Randy Jones, the cowboy from Village People and the keynote speaker at this weekend's NC Pride parade and festival.

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Same-Sex Marriage

Alex Granados

Alex Granados joined The State of Things in July 2010. He got his start in radio as an intern for the show in 2005 and loved it so much that after trying his hand as a government reporter, reader liaison, features, copy and editorial page editor at a small newspaper in Manassas, Virginia, he returned to WUNC. Born in Baltimore but raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, Alex moved to Raleigh in time to do third grade twice and adjust to public school after having spent years in the sheltered confines of a Christian elementary education. Alex received a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also has a minor in philosophy, which basically means that he used to think he was really smart but realized he wasn’t in time to switch majors. Fishing, reading science fiction, watching crazy movies, writing bad short stories, and shooting pool are some of his favorite things to do. Alex still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up, but he is holding out for astronaut.

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Frank Stasio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.

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