Remembering Nancy Valmus

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By Rand Hall

I will share two brief stories among the many thousands of memories I have. But I believe these two stories show who Nancy was.

Nancy has been gone 27 years. I can still see her flying through the airport parking garage holding a silver lamé tablecloth like a superwoman cape. We had just left a dinner gathering of the Tampa Bay Business Guild held at the Tampa Airport Hotel ballroom.

Ok, first remembrance. Our newspaper, the Gazette, had a booth at a Tampa Pride event held in city park. On a lightly sloping hill,  a group of about six young skinheads stood apart from the crowd. This was in the very early 1990s and the skinhead movement was at its peak.  Nancy saw them with their swastikas and confederate flags, their tattoos and piercings. She walked up the hill and sat down on the grass with them.

Later, she told me what she had said to them. She asked why they were there. No,  not in a confrontational way but with a sincere desire to understand. They said they didn’t like queers and they had a right to be there to protest. Nancy listened and acknowledged their feelings. She agreed with their right to demonstrate their displeasure. And then she gently explained we were there for the same reason, that we were also there to protest. We were standing up against anti-gay laws and attitudes. I’m sure there were more words said, but those were the important ones. She bid them goodbye and returned to our booth. It wasn’t long before the young skinheads put down their signs and joined us, supporting our right to protest. Nancy treated everyone with love and usually they responded in kind.

I met Nancy at Womonwrites in 1985. It was an instant connection. During Womonwrites the following year, it was hot. So hot that one Womanwriter, Sheila Grace, wrote it was “so hot she’d sell her soul for a coke on ice.”

In the un-air conditioned dining hall, even with the windows open and all the fans on, the air was a stagnant 95 degrees. One woman took her shirt off and soon bare breasts were everywhere. Nancy also took off hers , a red silk blouse, and the eyes of every woman in the room tuned to Nancy in her black lace bra. That was my Nancy.

I have never met a kinder, gentler more compassionate human, nor anyone as bright and talented in anything and everything she did – creating a newspaper, art, cooking, any craft that she set her hand to, Nancy did it well and did it with style. But what I miss most is her intelligence and curiosity. I miss being able to talk with her, hearing her gentle, southern voice and looking into those deep sea-green eyes.