April 2, 1997
Mr. William Glover
315 Monroe
Bossier City, LA 71111
Dear Billy,
Enclosed please find a news clipping which may interest you. Please note that XXXX XXXXXX the CEO of XXXXXXX and owner of 57% of the company also has contracts with the National XXXXX Convention organizations.
I hope you do not expect a lot of help from this man!
You should have received my call by now regarding the Don Slater memorial. The ONE Institute is willing to advance you the money to attend this memorial and the meeting of HIC with representatives of ONE to be held just prior to or the day after the memorial.
This money would be reimbursed to ONE by HIC in the near future after we are working together. I feel it is important that our agreement of understanding be in written form and that you be a party to it. You are an important figure in HIC and we really want to work with you.
I have contacted Albert Brecht the co-chair of the USC Gay & Lesbian Alumnus group to help arrange for a place at USC for Don's memorial. I have suggested Saturday April 26th from 2 to 3 pm. I hope to hear from him shortly. He did say that you did call him and notify him of Don's death.
Good news! I met today with the USC budget people and have set in motion the money and work to finish this building. Fifty thousand dollars was allocated to be spent by July 1 on the architectural needs of this building. One hundred and forty thousand would then be spent after July 1 to finish the work. This does not include other moneys being set aside for roof, security and structural foundation work.
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I hope that the work can be completed by late Fall or early Winter so that we can begin to move in and be open by the Spring of 1998. ONE would likely have our grand opening celebration in October 1998.
We want to make this a big party and spectacular. We only get one grand opening and we want to make it memorable! I expect to have a number of special dignitaries (politicians, activists, actors and entertainers) involved in many ways for this celebration. You will of course receive an invitation and be a special invited guest.
HIC may wish to have their own separate opening and which we would of course honor and try to be helpful in providing space and staff support. Several of our special collections have their own activities. We just try and coordinate them, to not conflict if possible in dates and times.
Of course/ HIC would be most welcome to be open during the ONE grand opening to acquaint visitors and attendees with the collection and work of HIC.
While the HIC Collection was not kept in the best of ways and some materials were actually lost, I believe we must all work together to try and save and organize this historically important collection. Over the next two years, I would like to assist with members and workers of HIC in several important areas to help work towards the HIC collection becoming a first class professional operation and working archives.
I believe some of the immediate needs of the HIC collection are:
The ONE Institute is committed to working with HIC to organize and save this important collection. An expression of this support of this effort is that they have assigned me to help coordinate this work among our two organizations. While I have many responsibilities, the importance of organizing and preserving this collection has been given priority over many other necessary tasks. I have already spent a great number of hours and continue to spend time on individual books and documents trying to save them from destruction because of the conditions they were found in. This is an opportunity to bring to closure the events that occurred over thirty years ago between members of ONE. It is an historic opportunity. I can assure you that I will do my most to have this history making alliance between us grow and produce an effort we will all be proud of.
I do hope you will join us for the memorial and our next set of meetings to further the course we are all now embarked on.
You will receive our newsletter (24 pages) in around two weeks. There are two articles on the HIC in it (including your photo!). I hope you will find it of interest. I tried to make sure in the article that the agreements that we made together would be honored by ONE. I believe this new arrangement has done this.
I expect to be going to Florida this Fall and then up the Eastern Coast to New York with a truck to bring back a number of important collections. I will make sure to stop and see you on my way there.
