This is a special area of the tridd website.

To return to the main site at any point, click the tridd logo in the top left corner of any page.

To return to the tridd forums, click the “blue-sky-through-trees” photo in the top right corner of each page.

To see a larger version of any photo in the album, click on that photo, then use your browser’s “back” button to return to the browser.

The photos within this album are quite large… so if you have a slower internet connection, such as dialup, you may be better off sticking to this page.

 

Thanks for joining me in this brief journey through my past. I was surprised how emotional the experience of putting all this together has been — since I hadn’t looked at many of these photos in years.

Photo Album

When it’s safe to be gay  in Texas, it will be safer everywhere.

I graduated from Dodge City Senior High School in 1979. Here are some yearbook photos

President Ronald Reagan personally handed me my diploma.

From the USAFA 1984 Yearbook.

contact me

website feedback

High School

I spent much of my senior year preparing for the Air Force Academy. This is the 1979 catalog I practically memorized while trying to get in.

A photo of Heather Wilson from my 1979 Academy Catalog (pictured above). Of course, I had no way of knowing it, but Heather and I would become friends at the Air Force Academy.

The Air Force Academy

Aerial view of the Academy in winter.

My “graduation” photo from Basic Cadet Training, or “BCT” in Jack’s Valley, in the summer of 1980.

I’ve been told the Cadet Chapel at the Air Force Academy is the most popular tourist destination in the state of Colorado.

An article from my home town in 1983.

Icarus is the annual cadet literary publication. I won an award in this (1983) edition for my short story, “Eye to Eye.”

 

This was the same year I began working on my film, “Beyond the Chapel Wall,” which premiered the day before graduation.

A news paper article from my grandmother’s home town of Sterling, KS, from 1983.

Graduation

Our class ring was designed by my friend, Kevan Wong.

 

The symbolism within the design is steeped in military academy tradition.

 

Kevan and I went to Europe together after graduation for a short vacation before setting out on our respective military careers.

Of course, my whole family was present for graduation. Here’s a photo with mom at a Colorado Springs restaurant.

Life in the real world...

Taken at Christmas, in 1988, at age 27. This was the first Christmas since graduating in 1984 I was able to spend at home with my family.

Photo with mom in 1993, during my court martial for being gay.

Photo taken in 1996, when I was teaching film & video at the Art Institute of Houston.

Tyler newspaper article from December, 2005.

 

I’ve come a long way from USAFA wunderkind to AIDS poster boy.

 

Still, it’s an important job… the reporter said that, after years of trying, I was the first she’d found locally willing to attach their name & face to the AIDS virus.

Another shot from 1998, at my home in North Carolina. I had a small studio by now and started a local filmmaking group.

Here are some photos  of me out of the 1981 USAFA Yearbook.