Word: korhonen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Jeff Korhonen, 27, can explain the situation as well as anyone else. He was raised in Cheyenne, his father a career military man, his mother a Mormon, his grandfather a First Assembly of God minister, and there was no dinner conversation long enough for Korhonen to slip in the news that he was a different kind of cowboy. Not until his early 20s, as an exchange student in Florida, did he come out, and there is something to be learned about diversity in Wyoming when you hear Korhonen say, "Orlando was like a gay Mecca...
...When I left Cheyenne for Laramie," Korhonen remembers, "my father said, 'I know you're very proud of who you are, but please, please watch yourself because there are people who will want to destroy you simply because of who you are.' I gave him a big hug and said, 'I know.' And then the first thing I saw when I got to Laramie was a bumper sticker that said HATRED IS A FAMILY VIRTUE...
...hate to say it, but it affirmed my worst possible nightmares of what was possible. I just never felt comfortable here," says Korhonen, who had never met Shepard. "When I walked out of the apartment to my car, it was, 'Oh, my God.' This could have happened to any one of us. It could have been me. It was the most terrifying moment. You know this is real; you go out into the dark; and it's everything adding...
...loves Wyoming, as Shepard did, as Osborne does, because it's beautiful and it's home. But when the semester's done in December, Korhonen will be gone. He's moving to Denver, where it's easier...
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