May 1990
PAGE 3 Q-Notes
Lockhart Gives All To Names Project
By Don King
Special To Q-Notes
A Names Project chapter for Charlotte
was inevitable. But without Sheila Lockhart
and her friend Allen, it might not have come
for months, or years.
The Names Project is known by most as,
simply. The Quilt. Thousands of panels,
usu^ly six feet by four feet, have been made
and displayed, and have become the most
visible way in the nation to honor the mem
ory of a person who has died of AIDS.
A year ago, Allen was working for Sheila
at Ch^SouthPark. The two had known each
other for six years; Sheila hired him fre
quently to model in and train models for
Chaz shows. And when Allen decided to
leam hair design at South Eastern College of
Beauty School, Sheila, who managed Chaz/
SouthPark, told him he had a guaranteed job.
He went to work in November, 1988.
Six months later, Sheila noticed that Al
len wasn’t quite himself.
“Allen would come to work, but he wasn’t
all there,” she said. “Something was visibly
bothering him.
“As time went on, you could tell some
thing wasn’t right physically. Allen had what
he said was a sty on his eyelid, but it wasn’t
getting well. He insisted he was working on
it.”
By July, Allen asked Sheila to allow him
have time off for treatments for a type of skin
cancer.
More concerned than ever that Allen
wasn’t allowing her and his coworkers to
support him, Sheila talked with Rev. Glenn
Boland after speaking with Mrs. Boland,
who worked at the Chaz headquarters office.
Rev. Boland frequently works with AIDS
patients, and his chinch now houses the
Names I^ject’s quilt-making workshop.
“Glenn counseled me in ways I could
make Allen comfortable talking to me about
whether he had AIDS and said it was impor
tant that I assure him he wouldn’t be fired.
“The next day, my day off, I went to the
salon. Allen was sitting in the back room and
I recognized that a prescription he showed
me was from one of Charlotte’s best AIDS
specialists. I told Allen I was so glad he was
seeing that doctor.
“Well, Allen was shocked that I had fig-
ined it out. When I asked him straightfor
wardly if he had Kaposi’s sarcoma, he fell
into my arms crying. He said the doctors had
told him he had four to six months to live.”
On July 15, a Saturday, Sheila closed
Chaz for an hour to host a 29th birthday party
for Allen.
“We decorated his station and invited his
fiiends. And we collected $400 for him.”
Allen worked until the day he went into
the hospital, the Wednesday before Hurri
cane Hugo struck on Sept. 22. He died on
Oct. 2. After the burial, several of Allen’s
closest fiiends decided that “it can’t just end
like this,” and took steps to form a Names
Project chapter.
In February, the group felt it had finished
the stringent steps for forming a chapter,
called the San Francisco office, and foimd
that a national chapter conference was to be
held. So Sheila and another of the foimding
members hand-carried the application to San
ftancisco, and were granted a charter before
returning to Charlotte.
“The day I came back ficm San Francisco
— we took the red-eye flight — we landed
at 7 in the meaning, I got to work at a quarter
to 8, and I was terminated that afternoon at
3.”
Sheila had come to Charlotte 12 years ago
when her husband — they have been di
vorced now for six years — was transferred
by General Motors from the New Jersey-
New York area to Charlotte. So Sheila started
over again in her career.
She had attended Fairleigh-Dickinson
University in Rutherford, NJ., and had
worked an as accoimtant. In Charlotte she
worked first as a manager for Precision
Cutters, then for Seligman & Latz, which
operated hair salons in Ivey’s. She was re
cruited in 1983 by Charles Potts, getting in
on the ground floor of the Chaz chain, wliich
now has more than a dozen salons in Char
lotte, the Raleigh area, and the Myrtle Beach
area.
“I told Mr. Potts that Allen had AIDS a
couple of days after talking to Glenn Boland
the first time,” Sheila said. “He sat and lis
tened and didn’t comment very much. He’s
an older gentleman, very conservative. He
told me to handle the situation, that I’d be
okay if my decisions were good.
“I think his concern was how clients would
feel about a person with AIDS doing their
hair. I reminded him that people can’t get
AIDS from a hair designer, and that we had
to be careful that the cUents might give Allen
something.
“I became good friends with Allen’s
friends, who were mostly gay, from cooking
and cleaning for him and being with him at
the hospital. I love them very much and came
to know that they were very caring and giv
ing individuals.
“Wonderful friendships developed, and I
became interested in AIDS because of that. 1
met more people who were sick and dying
and learned so much from them.
“I believe Mr. Potts knew about my so
cializing with gay people more and more.
Gay people became a big part of my life.
They took me to gay bars and it was a lot of
fun. I met female impersonators and became
fiiends with them.
“And I showed Mr. Potts photos of a
group of us who had worn costumes on
Halloween. He asked me who one of the
individuals was, and I had to explain that it
was one of our employees, a man, dressed in
drag. I was laughing about it, but when I told
him this, his face dropped. He looked at me
and said he was a little worried about me. I
assured him I was fine, that these guys treated
me with a lot of respect and love.
“That was the first inkling I had that he
wasn’t happy with my friendships with gay
people.
“I didn’t discuss the Names Project idea
with him and told the people on our steering
committee that I would have to keep a low
profile. When the trip to San Francisco came
up, however, I had to tell him that I needed
four days off, and he said he hoped I wasn’t
going with a bunch of gays. I didn’t tell him
why I was going.
“When I was terminated, he was very
friendly in the 2 1/2 hours we talked and said
he’d do anything to help me find a job. He
Spoleto
19 90
tg Join the special
|ir celebration that will be the
111990 Spoleto Festival U.S.A.
Let Yourself Gol
©
/
Ill's
/
May 25-June 10
I
gave me a month’s sevaance pay and pay for
two weeks’ vacation. There was no animos
ity then, and there still isn’t.
“There was no official reason for my
firing. Mr. Potts just said it wasn’t working
out, and that he felt the need for a change. He
said he would tell the state unemployment
people and anyone who called wanting to
hire me that I was leaving through mutual
agreement. He tried to make it as easy as
possible.”
Sheila was still unemployed in late April,
but had been offered a job that she was
consid»ing.
“I get such satisfaction in what I’m doing
now (with the Names Project) and have made
so many friends. I’m grateful for the oppor
tunity — and the honor — of knowing these
people and being accepted by them.
“Naturally, people ask why a straight
businesswoman is involved with the Names
Project. They want to know if my interest is
legitimate, and they seem to fully understand
when I tell them atout the people I’ve gotten
to know through Allen’s illness and death.
“I can’t wait for the day when we close the
quilt-making workshop, the day there is not
one more name to add to The Quilt. That will
be the happiest day of my life.”
Names Project/Charlotte
P.O. Box 36261
Charlotte, N.C. 28236
Phone 704/541-6679
(local to Charlotte)
Making Panels, Volunteering
Panel-making workshop: Wednes
days 7:30 p.m. at Holy Trinity Lu
theran Church Fellowship Hall, 1900
The Plaza. Open to people wanting to
make quilt panels or volunteer to help
with the Names Project.
Next National Display
Oct. 4-7, Atlanta, Chicago and three
other cities across the U.S. The Quilt
has outgrown The Mall in Washing
ton, D.C.
1
V •
danceyourassoff
THE ffRC^DE CLUB
Liberty Street
Charleston, S.C.
(803) 577-9160 for a night
of fun and excitement