Happy endings are possible, even in 2020

Back row: Taylor and Jordan. Front row: Dawn, Skyler, and Stacy

By Tom Reardon

Dawn Wallschlaeger and Stacy Mitchell Wallschlaeger adopted Skyler in August of 2019 and their story is possibly the happiest, most empowering story you will read in all of 2020.

What does it take to adopt or foster a child? If this is a question you have ever asked yourself or talked about with your partner, the following paragraphs are for you.

If you grew up in the system, a number more than a name and maybe (no, probably) never found the right place for you, this story is also for you. For me, it is just a privilege to get to be the guy asking questions and getting answers.

Dawn Wallschlaeger and Stacy Mitchell

Wallschlaeger are two of the coolest people you could ever meet. Sure, they love the

Denver Broncos, but even if you’re a Raiders (what town do they represent again, now, oh yeah, Las Vegas) or a Kansas City Chiefs fan, you still couldn’t walk away from meeting these two without feeling good about yourself and the world, for that matter. They are both social workers whose efforts are entwined with finding the best possible life for the children in Phoenix who need it the most, foster kids.

They are also the adoptive parents of

Skyler Mitchell Wallschlaeger, 17, who they were lucky enough to meet in late 2018 and officially add to their family several months later.

Stacy and Dawn, who have been together for ten years, have three other children, all sons. Two are older (Zander, 35, and Taylor, 20) than Sklyer, and one is younger (Jordan, 16). They were were licensed to provide foster care in Arizona previous to meeting Skyler, although at the time of meeting them, were not really looking to add to their family. Stacy had taken a tough fall in the months prior to hearing about Skyler and the couple had also had a difficult experience with a previous foster child, so they were taking a break from the idea of adding to their family when fellow social workers started telling them about “this kid.”

What follows is some of the conversation we shared over Zoom on a Monday night in November. Stacy, Dawn, and Skyler were generous with their time and their story with hope that it may help other children find forever families of their own. Here’s what they had to say:

So, tell me how you came to meet Skyler.

Stacy: So, we, we are members of a couple of different foster parents’ groups on Facebook. One in particular for LGBT parents, and the special recruiter that was working with Skyler had put them on Facebook. At the time, we really weren’t looking and were a little gun shy about it. Then we saw Skyler’s story from the special recruiter and talked about it. I don’t look at Facebook very often, so for us to see it at the time, it just seemed right. That was November 2018. We first met Sklyer right before Christmas, 2018.

Is it challenging for you both to be on both sides of the system? What is that experience like?

Dawn: Stacy and I both work in their field. We’re both social workers in child welfare, a lot of people who have been licensed for a while work in the fields of social work here in Arizona for 25 and 35 years. Sometimes that’s a benefit and sometimes it’s not such a great thing.

Skyler came into our lives actually in a couple different ways. Stacy was looking at Facebook, and I was kind of perusing through that and we have a mutual friend, a special recruiter for Arizona Children’s Association, Jen Workman, who was looking for a samesex couple, specifically, to advocate for Skyler; and we were also approached by Ricky Deadwood, who is now at DCS, who privately reached out and said, “This is really gonna be a great match for you. You guys really need to look at this.”

I was still recovering so we kind of put it off a little bit and Skyler just kept coming up. It was just kind of meant to be. Stacy and I really feel strongly about things happening for a reason and it was very persistent for us. Skylar was just very persistent about that so there’s a lot of things that kind of came to fruition.

What was it about Skyler’s story that spoke to you?

Stacy: First I will tell you that “Skyler” is not Skyler’s birth name. It is Skyler’s chosen name. The part of the story I think that resonated for us … When we got licensed (for foster care), we decided that we wanted to do a couple of things. We wanted to focus on teenagers and kids that were in group homes because what we know from working in the business is that kids languish in group homes and they get to the point they don’t want families or families are looking for younger kids, all that kind of stuff. We were like, if we’re really going to do this, then we want to go where we are really needed, and we know the need is for kids in group homes.

And we also know that the need is there for LGBTQ homes and that’s something that we can provide that other families can’t provide. That understanding, that acceptance, that ability to walk this path. Gender identity was part of Skyler’s story and they were a teenager in group homes. At that point, they had been in the system for six years.

Oh wow.

Stacy: The parent’s rights had severed when they were ten. Dawn: Many, many, many different placements. So, there was a lot of upheaval and a lot of moving and not and a lot of true stability from our perspective. I think that’s the other piece, right, when you have kiddos that have been in group homes, their sense of stability is instability, and that had become pretty, pretty prevalent. Stacy: Skyler really wanted a family. Dawn: Skyler really wanted a family and wanted a family within the LGBTQ realm.

Wanting two moms, in particular, and really have the ideal family. That spoke to us. Our first visit, they were at a group home and Stacy and I broke down and wanted to, they go by “they/them,” and we took them to Starbucks and for two hours, that kid did not stop talking. They were super happy, very open, and it was just kind of there. We just sat there and thought, “Well, all right. There we are. This was meant to be.” I think the next weekend they visited with us again. Stacy: They visited with us on Christmas day and they were placed with us on January 4 (2019).

Isn’t it typically about a three-month waiting period before children move in?

Stacy: There’s reasons for that, there’s absolutely reasons for that. I think it has to do with our experience of being in the field and our sense that this was the right thing that Skyler was a match, and we were a match for Skyler. For us it was really about that we went into it to foster and we’ll adopt if it is right and the kid wants that. Now we know Skyler wanted to be a family. The decision to adopt does take a long time but we also know there are reasons for that time.

Does the system realize how tough it is for the LGBTQ+ kids within it?

Stacy: I think the system doesn’t always realize how tough it is for all the kids in it.

Right, not to downplay the toughness there is for all kids in the system, but there are not a lot of options for children who are LGBTQ+, correct?

Dawn: I think that is a very valid point. The LGBTQ kiddos don’t have as much advocacy, I think. That’s the case in general, let alone, kids that are in the DCS system and living in group homes. If they identify on their journeys a certain way there’s just a lot of a lot of bureaucracy that stands in their way, but I also believe that there’s a lot of lack of understanding of the challenge.

We can say that from our perspective because there are agencies out there that will license families that are LGBTQ identified, and then there’s the next step of actually supporting those families and understanding that, “Yeah, well sure, we’ll license you but do we really understand that you can lose your job at any second because you’re not a protected person?” Do they understand the length of the extra step that needs to happen to be an advocate?

I think you can multiply that by 10 for the kiddos that are raised within this system that identify as LGBTQ because there’s a perspective where, “Oh, you don’t really know yet,” or “Oh, you know, but you don’t know where you fit in” or “It is a phase.” There’s so many discounting or saying “It’s just your trauma” that occurs, but I do believe that is absolutely valid that there are not enough resources.

So, what steps do you think people, or the system, can take to be better advocates for LGBTQ+ youth?

Stacy: You know just talk to other foster parents. You know, probably the number one question we get on Facebook, every day practically, is like, “My wife and I are wanting to become foster parents, which agency should we go to?” Gay and straight both are asking that question because everyone is trying to look for an agency that is going to be a fit for them. Dawn: That’s the other piece, when you are networking, when you’re getting to know people, you’re reaching out, ask the questions about what are the steps that you take that are above and beyond? Do you have a special advocacy group for LGBT families? Who can you connect me with, are there other LGBTQ families that you’ve been licensed with, or that our licensed with you because it is really important to talk to other people about their experience?

That’s great advice. We should probably get Skyler’s opinion on all this. Skyler, do you remember what your first thought or feeling was when you met your moms?

Skyler: My gut feeling was (pauses) … my gut feeling was, “They are safe.” That was my reaction. I was really excited. As soon as I met them, they let me talk and talk and talk.

I heard. If you were going to give advice to someone in a similar situation as you, what would it be?

Skyler: Be who you are because it is not going to cost you anything. A lot of our mindsets, when we get out of group homes, is that everyone is just always taking from us. So, if we just be ourselves and just show them who we are, it’s not going to cost us anything. They’re not taking from us. We are giving to them and they are giving back.

That’s really beautiful. If you could do anything differently or if there was a big learning experience from your first few months together, what would that be?

Skyler: I’ve had a couple of experiences where I just wish I would have been more honest with them. They already knew everything but there are a couple of instances where I wish I would have just told them what was on my mind.

What’s the best part of your family?

Skyler: Throughout the years they have started putting up pictures of us and pictures of me that they received and it’s like slowly putting me into the family, officially, and that was really nice.

Tom Reardon loves to write about people who are doing something to contribute to our community in a positive way. He also loves his family and family of friends, his pets, music, skateboarding, movies, good (and bad) TV, and working with children to build a better world. Tom’s favorite movie is Jaws, his favorite food is lasagna, and he loves to play music with his friends. He’s a busy guy, but never too busy to listen to what you have to say so tell him a story.

Echo inducts Bob Booker into 2020 Hall of Fame

By Niki D’Andrea; photos courtesy of Bob Booker

Each year, as part of LGBTQ History Month, Echo Magazine honors community heroes who have helped raise awareness and spark change on the local and national levels by nominating them for induction into our Hall of Fame. Echo’s annual Hall of Fame tradition was established in 2006, and each year LGBTQ and allied community members have been recognized of their contributions in government and politics, nonprofit service, activism, and entertainment. There was no way Bob Booker was going to sit around at the senior center drawing turkey hands and making demographics. Being inducted into the Echo Hall of Fame is the latest accolade for him on a long list of awards. popsicle crosses. The arts programs he Since his “retirement” in 2017, Booker helped launch for seniors “were developed continues to advocate for the arts and make with a lot of care and respect for those statements with his own art at B Booker individuals,” he says, and they focused on Studio [https://rcbooker13.wixsite.com/ exploring what interested them in the arts, rbookerstudio]. He recently co-chaired whether it was talking about poetry or Arizona Arts for Biden and says now is the putting paint brush to canvas. time, more than ever, for artists to join in “the

Booker is a lifelong arts advocate, artist, revolution for the soul of America.” and arts administrator — but most of all, he’s He was fascinated with the arts from a community builder and a paradigm shifter. an early age, accompanying his parents to During his 11-year tenure as executive director museums and folk craft fairs as they moved of Arizona Commission on the Arts, Booker around the East Coast throughout the 1960s led initiatives that provided support to local for his father’s job. After spending much of artists and access to the arts for people of all his childhood in Richmond, Virginia, Booker’s family landed in South Dakota, where he attended a public high school rich with arts programs.

“I found a real place in the theater department in high school,” Booker says. “I think you’ll talk to a lot of gay folks that really found a home for themselves in the arts … I think the arts have always provided a safe place for folks that maybe were trying to find themselves and trying to find their future. I was one of those examples. I was a kid that fell into the theater department and found a place that was welcoming, that was not biased, that was gay-friendly.”

He earned a degree in theater from Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 1977 and became an intern for the South Dakota Arts Council, working directly under executive director Charlotte Carver. It was there, while running errands, organizing mailings, and filing paperwork that an earnest passion for arts administration was born.

“In that arts administration and public funding environment, I recognized that if I was going to be a professional actor, I didn’t really have the talent to survive. So, the arts administration became interesting to me,” Booker says. “The fact that you were able to work with the broad spectrum of the arts, you could work with all these disciplines, and that you were close to artists and supporting their work. You were close to arts organizations. So, when I was an intern with the South Dakota Arts Council, I imagined a future in that field.”

Booker obtained his first executive director job, at the Minnesota State Arts Board, in 1997. He worked on the board of the Minnesota AIDS Project from 1996 to 2001, and on the board of Arts Over AIDS from 1993 to 1995.

Booker and his partner tested positive for HIV in 1989. One of Booker’s goals in portraying the impacts of AIDS through art was to change public perception. “We wanted to recognize the impact that HIV and AIDS was having on the artistic community of Minnesota, to reimagine language and messaging and visual images that would help people understand the pandemic and the crisis we were going through in visual and personal ways,” Booker says. “Early on, the images we were seeing on the news were of people dying, like the famous Nicholas Nixon picture of the gaunt guy in the hospital bed with his father next to him. Those were the images coming out early on, and we wanted to change that image to something that was not only surviving but thriving.”

HIV awareness is still a big deal to Booker, now a longtime survivor. Sadly, his partner died eight years ago. “The medication that he was on wiped out his liver and he passed away,” Booker says. “So, it’s important to always recognize that even though we have made incredible strides in that field, people are still dying and people are still not able to tolerate the medication and people still have

other complications — especially those of us that are in our older years.”

Booker became executive director of the Arizona Commission on the Arts in 2006. Over the next 11 years, he led the commission through recession-era budget cuts, public policy shifts, and a prosperous post-recession period that included expanding funding partnerships and artist grants and the creation of Arizona’s first Poet Laureate post.

Jaime Dempsey served as deputy director for the Arizona Commission on the Arts under Booker and became executive director after his retirement. “My dear Bob. He’s a force! Not only is he lovely and generous and fun; he’s a great advocate for the creative sector, a wonderful friend and mentor, and a true activist at his core,” Dempsey says. “He’s been putting his body and his name on the line for decades, persistent in pushing back against all manner of injustice. I adore him. Please give him all the accolades.” Echo: Congratulations on being inducted into the Hall of Fame! Booker: Thank you! As I looked through the past members of the Hall of Fame, I am really honored to be part of that group of advocates, that army of “action people” who are committed to making our world better. I’m really honored to be part of that cohort of individuals. Echo: What was your childhood like in Richmond, Virginia? Bob Booker: I was supposed to be a very conservative kid. I joke that had I gone to my parents’ college, which was the University of Richmond and at the time was a Baptist college, I probably would be a very successful lawyer with an alcohol problem, a wife, two kids, and a boyfriend in Peru. Echo: What’s one of your favorite memories from your time as executive director for the Arizona Commission on the Arts? Booker: We created a program called Art Tank, which was sort of modeled after the Shark Tank TV show. It was a program that happened in four regions of the state, where arts organizations and individuals would compete for funding for an innovative project they created that moved the arts

America and Thoughts and Prayers from Booker’s America series. Shadowbox, transferred text/image on paper, 11”x14”

forward in some way. The grant was based not only on the project, but on the presentation. We had a panel of folks from that region of the state … and then individuals had four minutes to make their case.

I remember one woman in Bisbee, she came on stage with a giant cardboard car, and her presentation was all about her program to deliver arts programming to people in that region of the state where the kids didn’t really have access to visual arts education. She would take this van and drive into communities and set up shop and kids would come and take classes. Art Tank was a dynamic and exciting program, and a really fun competition, where everyone had a voice in it and the audience even had an Audience Award. Echo: What things are essential to a healthy and thriving arts community? Booker: Access is always the word we talk about. The goal is that every child in a school has access to the arts — that they have a visual arts classroom and teacher, a drama teacher, and a band. It’s one thing for someone with wealth or financial abilities to take their child to piano lessons or dance class, but in the arts, we want to make sure that everyone is accountable, and everyone has the opportunity.

The other thing we have to look at is access to performances and exhibitions that are reasonable and affordable for people. So, we have to look at ticket prices and ask, “Is that an affordable price for individuals across the state?” Echo: You’ve been a lifelong advocate for the arts. Who or what do the arts advocate for? Booker: It was said, “The revolution will not be televised.” Though I honor the poet Gil Scott Heron, indeed the revolution is being broadcast, minute by minute. On Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and in the media, we hear a call to become implicated in positive change. We are in the midst of a revolution. A revolution to save the soul of America. Our army is legion. Artists carry creativity, innovation, questions, experience, and answers in their backpacks … show up, speak up, advocate for change, advocate for the arts, advocate for America. Visit echomag.com/echo-magazines-hall-offame/to see previous inductees.

Niki D’Andrea is a Phoenix-based journalist and editor whose career spans 28 years and includes editor positions at Phoenix New Times, PHOENIX magazine, and Times Media Group. Her scope of coverage has included political elections, drug culture, funding for HIV treatments and medicine, LGBTQ art, fringe sports, and celebrities. When not chasing stories, D’Andrea cheers on her favorite sports team, the Phoenix Mercury, and enjoys playing classic rock records from her collection of vinyl albums.