Steven Forster & Cathy Fox Chosen as NOLA Pride 2010 Grand Marshals
The NOLA Pride Committee chose Steven Forster and Cathy Fox to lead festivities for the New Orleans Pride celebration as 2010 Pride Grand Marshals. Out of a field of seven male nominees and five gender identified female nominees, the committee was given backgound information on each nominee. The entire committee voted, selecting the grand marshals.
Pride Grand Marshal Steven Forster is a New Orleans native and has been a professional photographer for more than twenty years. His work is in public and private collections, among them The Permanent Collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Permanent Collection of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, The Permanent Collection of The Historic New Orleans Collection, as well as exhibiting at the Contemporary Arts Center, The World Financial Center Winter Garden in New York City and many others.
His work has been included in exhibitions of master photographers Ansel Adams, Walker Evans, Clarence John Laughlin, and Weegee, as well as exhibitions with Yoko Ono, LeRoy Neiman, Peter Max and Tony Bennett.
He has had more than ten thousand photographs published worldwide.
He currently writes and photographs the Big Easy page in the Sunday edition of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and has won eight Alpha Awards in Fashion Photography, several for his Big Easy page. And Steven was the last person known to have photographed Ethel Merman.
Pride Grand Marshal Cathy Fox was born in Chicago and moved to New Orleans 3 ½ years ago with her partner of 22 years, Barry Rutherford. Cathy has been doing "drag" for the last 3 ½ years and has been active performing for fundraising efforts of various groups and charitable organizations. Cathy is also a member of FourPlay and performs at JohnPaul's with shows every other Friday.
Cathy has always been active in the LGBT community through community centers in the cities in which she has lived. Cathy has volunteered at LGBT centers in Dallas, Denver, Palm Springs and now New Orleans in a variety of capacities such as Peer Counseling, Young Men’s Coming Out Groups and answering the center phones. Cathy is currently serving on this year’s NOLA Pride organizing committee.
Cathy is a Lord in the Lords of Leather Mystic Mardi Gras Krewe and the current reigning Miss Louisiana Leatherette 2010. Cathy is very active with charity work and fundraising. Through her charity work with the Lords, she helped raise over $3500 for St. Anna’s Food Bank.
"Cathy" – when she is "Kevin" – is the Business Manager for a Cancer Research Consortium here in New Orleans.
Cathy is very proud to represent the New Orleans’ LGBT community with Mr. Steven Foster as the first NOLA Pride Grand Marshals.
According to Cathy, "I believe we have the opportunity to make the upcoming Pride Festival a huge success and an event we can all be proud of and look forward to every year."
