Kerry Pacer
As a junior at White County High School in small-town Cleveland, Georgia, Pacer took a stand to found a gay-straight alliance, because, as she told us, “there is lot of harassment all the time toward minority groups…and things need to change to get to where they need to be.” Her actions spawned controversy with the school board and local fundamentalist churches. Georgia’s ACLU took on the battle for the group, called PRIDE (Peers Rising in Diverse Education). Her parents, Savannah and Bill Pacer, were supportive of their daughter’s cause. For her activism, Pacer was named the Advocate’s 2005 Person of the Year and received a 2006 Respect Award from GLSEN. “It shouldn’t be that amazing or that big of a deal to start a gay-straight alliance, but it is,” said Pacer. She graduated from high school this May, and in the fall, will start at Georgia State University for political science.
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