In the spring of 2024, a couple of event planners from Capital City Pride were in search of LGBTQIA2S+ history in and about the City of Olympia. They searched in the library, they surfed on the internet, they asked around and could not find a trace of leather, lace, rainbow glitter or how the LGBTQIA2S+ community started Pride in Olympia, WA.

Pride President, Natalie Coblentz, then went to their dear friend, Meg Rosenberg who was working for a wonderful nonprofit called Window Seat Media and just by chance - they were an organization who recorded oral histories ran by Elaine Vradenburgh,

After some time and meetings, in 2025, the group decided to take on this adventure and pioneer the great capture of LGBTQIA2S+ stories in Olympia, WA.

We connected and collected a cohort of individuals to interview the masses. Window Seat Media educated the cohort on proper Oral Audio Recording techniques and tact.

The Cohort consists of Azadi Amaan, Jonah Barnett, Lucas Claussen, Natalie Coblentz and led by educator Elaine Vradenburgh.

Now we have over twenty interviews and a variety of content and a wealth of knowledge on what Olympia, WA was like back in the day, but we are still thirsty for more!

Thanks to Evergreen Professors Diego Zavala Schererand and Alice Nelson - who connected with us to incorporate the education of audio engineering and oral storytelling in with our project we were able to collaborated with a group of evergreen students on this project. It was them who picked out special excerpt from the full raw episodes the cohort recorded in the field.

If you, or if you know someone who would be a good person to interview for this project, please connect with us.