May 15, 1944 – December 6, 2020
Pontiac native Barbara Jean Ziegler of Waterford attended Michigan State and Wayne State University and earned her Master’s at Oakland University. She taught every grade from K through 8th in the Pontiac schools and later became an elementary and junior high principal. After a heterosexual marriage and raising her family, Ziegler united with her life partner Jo Nebeker, who survived her.
March 24, 1965 – November 21, 1995
Warren resident Charles Petty grew up around Waterford and Pontiac and graduated with the class of 1983 from Lake Orion High School. He was a bartender at the Woodward and the Other Side, as well as a dancer at the Gold Coast. Petty later handled maintenance at the TNT Health Club and his lover was Danny Potter. He died from AIDS-related complications at age 30
January 26, 1963 – March 9, 1995
Scott Bernard Amedure moved to Waterford from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when he was five, left high school at 17 to join the U.S. Army, and later worked as a bartender at Popper’s in Pontiac. In March 1995, two days after Amedure revealed his secret crush on his straight acquaintance Jonathan Schmitz during a taping of the Jenny Jones Show, Schmitz murdered him in his Orion Township mobile home.
August 7, 1947 – February 3, 2002
Originally from Waterford, Harry “Kitty” Kevorkian became involved in the Gay Liberation Front in Ann Arbor during in the early 1970s. He, took part in numerous protests, once crashing an event donned in skag drag at the home of the president of the University of Michigan. Kevorkian was a candidate for the city’s mayor in 1974 and later headed the bus union during a 42-day walkout.
April 7, 1921 – June 15, 2014
As a fighter pilot in World War II, Pontiac native and Rochester Hills resident Robert Harper survived weeks in the jungles of the Philippines after his plane was shot down. With degrees from Albion and Michigan State University, he taught in the Waterford Schools for twenty-five years. Harper was of a generation that never told their parents they were gay.
September 8, 1955 – February 15, 2014
Yvonne Hebert enjoyed playing softball and cheered for the Detroit Tigers. A member of the Youth Activity Council, she was employed by DBQ Industries in Livonia. She and her life partner Ginger Howe resided in Waterford.
Michigan LGBTQ Remember 