Our Board – PFLAG Tulare & Kings Counties

President, pronouns she/her/hers, e-mail kathrynhall16@gmail.com

Cathy Brass, Member at large, pronouns she/her/hers

Suzie Ward, Member at large

Jonathan Ward, Treasurer, pronouns he/him/his

Katia Clark, Secretary, katiac@gmail.com

Katia has been a Visalian and Tulare County resident since immigrating from Mexico to the United States in 1975. Her passion is community service. Her work towards making Tulare County more equitable for marginalized communities have earned her The Volunteer of the Year Award from ACT for Women and Girls in 2016. Heart of a Lion from Visalia Pride Lions in 2019, and New Lion of the Year from Visalia Pride Lions in 2021.
She currently serve as Vice-President for Tulare County Mexican American Women, Board Member (founding Board Member and past Board Chair, 2018-2020) of The Source LGBT+ Center, Secretary for PFLAG Tulare and Kings County, and as Second Vice-President for Visalia Pride Lions.

Aaron Collins, Member at large

Aaron Collins joined the PFLAG Tulare-Kings board of directors in 2021.

Creator of OUTside Pride at Kaweah Oaks Preserve, Aaron channeled the combined energies of Tulare-Kings PFLAG, Visalia Pride Lions, and The Source LGBTQ+ Center to cofound that annual environmental service event in 2017 under the auspices of Sequoia Riverlands Trust. He is a founding supporter of The Source, and the recipient of the 2021 Visalia Pride Lions Club’s Heart of a Lion Award for outstanding service to the community.

Before joining in Central California’s arts and LGBTQ+ communities, Aaron served their counterpart communities in Oregon, as well as in the political arena after coming out early in his 20 years in Portland, where his partner’s father served as mayor. He served on boards and used his political consulting and marketing skills to help defeat the No on 13 campaign against a statewide anti-gay ballot measure sponsored by the now-defunct and disgraced Oregon Citizen Alliance. (No on 13’s campaign design was included in the American Institute of Graphic Arts exhibition entitled “Issues & Causes”.) Other winning clients included Oregon’s Commissioner of Labor and Industries (who was the first State Rep. to sponsor pro-LGBTQ+ legislation–in 1973!); the Oregon Legislature’s first out lesbian state legislator; and now-Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s first winning campaign for the state legislature (Gov. Brown is the first out bisexual governor in the U.S.).

Regionally Aaron is now perhaps best known for his longtime role as arts & culture writer for Lifestyle Magazine in whose pages he has featured a number of out LGBTQ+ writers, actors, designers, artists, and others. His work has also been published by McClatchy, Gannett and others. He cofounded First Arts, organizers of Visalia’s First Saturday Arts Market. He established the Visalia Visual Chronicle, the City of Visalia’s public art collection, and helped initiate the City of Visalia’s arts funding policy that resulted in the Arts Consortium’s designation as Tulare County’s affiliate of the California Arts Council, on whose board of directors he previously served. He is a past president of the Arts Council of Tulare County. While an active member of Portland’s art community, Aaron served as associate director for Portland’s most prominent contemporary art gallery; as curator of a prominent corporate art collection for an international financial services firm; and on the Advisory Board of ArtFair Seattle.

Aaron currently serves as Director of Marketing and Communications for a nationally-accredited Central California-based land trust, where he has turned his attention and skills towards California’s environmental needs in addition to his ongoing interests in the arts, cultural, social and political causes.

Jim Reeves, Jr., Membership, pronouns he/him/his, e-mail jim.visalia@gmail.com

I am a near-lifelong resident of Visalia, and have been active in local LGBT events since 2005’s counter-protest of a ‘protect marriage’ rally at Visalia’s Constitution Park. I’ve posted commentary, letters to the editor, and was a community blogger at The Visalia Times Delta newspaper from 2010 through 2019. I’ve had commissioned articles published both online and in print editions of the VTD, and 2008 through 2019 I have blogged on various local, state, and national blog sites. In 2015 I was selected to receive the “Heart of a Lion” award by Visalia Pride Lions. In 2016 I was a founding member of the Board of Directors for The Source LGBT+ Center. In 2017 I was honored to be selected co-Grand Marshal of the first Pride Visalia held by The Source LGBT+ Center, where I am currently Community Liaison. I am retired, and continue to reside in Visalia.