The Gay & Lesbian Times salutes and congratulates our neighbor publication, Update, on its receipt of the Stonewall Service Award for this year’s Pride.

Now in its 25th year, Update was founded by Don Hauck, a popular bartender from the former Riff Raff bar, along with Howard Rouse, who operated the now-defunct gay nightclub, West Coast Production Company. Their goal was to transcend the haphazard editorial qualities of the era’s “bar rag” publications by providing readers with insightful political profiles, in-depth interviews of famous people and harder news content.

According to current publisher Tom Ellerbrock, who began carrying the paper’s torch in 1992, the first few issues of Update were created in Hauck’s kitchen. “It was at a time when the idea of a gay media was quickly becoming reality.”

Today, the paper continues to bestow visibility on numerous nonprofit groups while reporting on local, national and global events that shape our lives. And each year it gives recognition to our community’s movers and shakers with a series of Crystal Heart Awards, which Ellerbrock created after becoming publisher. “The awards highlight people giving selflessly of themselves for the benefit of others,” he says.

Update’s current editor, Richard Wood, and assistant editor, Ren Petty, bring to the paper an impressive slate of news and entertainment stories each week that reflect the publication’s historic hands-on involvement in GLBT matters.

Congratulations to Ellerbrock and the entire Update staff for 25 years of solid service to our community.