This is the fourth of an ongoing series which seeks to analyze Technician as a publication and its history in LGBTQ activism.
Following another thread from the last article in this series, the Technician archives led me to an article concerning Jim Yocum and Bob Hoy.
Yocum attended NC State from 1979 to 1984 and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. He now works in software engineering, more specifically, medical software. Yocum returned to NC State as a featured speaker for the opening of a new engineering building in 2010.
Yocum is also a former Student Body President who was interviewed by Technician during his term regarding several issues including another former student, Bob Hoy, who was refused funding from Student Senate for a Gay Awareness Week bill at the time. Hoy and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance had requested $1,400.
In the Feb. 10, 1982 article in Technician, Yocum and Hoy discuss the denial of the funding, their quotes being put together as a conversation. However, Yocum said even though the article frames it as this back-and-forth conversation, they were both interviewed separately. Yocum said he had been asked more questions about procedures, funding and why the bill was not funded by Student Senate.
“For student activities, broadly speaking, these funds went into the Student Government Association and then became the funds of which the Student Senate proportioned monies to student groups when they came and asked,” Yocum said. “Most of these groups were asking for 200 bucks, 300 bucks per semester for something, whether it’s an activity or some sort of social fund or something like that for their own organization to supplement their own fundraising activities. In my recollection, $1,400 was a large request at the time.”
Yocum also said during this time, to his knowledge, the organization contained less than 50 people. This is corroborated by Technician’s reporting: “State’s Gay community which consisted of 21 active members.” Yocum also said it was not a time when many people were out or could be out.
“[People] weren’t out; that was just the way things were in North Carolina in the ‘70s,” Yocum said. “The first time I met folks who were out who were my age was at NC State. … However, my feeling was that this was a student organization. It was a charter student organization. It should have access to the same funds for their own activities, whatever they were, they just had to make their pitch, their proposed legislation to finance committee.”
According to the article and Yocum, the Gay Awareness Week bill lost due to Hoy’s personality, not the LGBTQ aspect of the bill.
“I think folks really fixated on him as a personality,” Yocum said. “That was my feeling, that it just lost the vote on the floor because of who the spokesperson was. Not because of anything [in particular]. Nobody came up and said much against the bill. Other than a number of folks said it’s a lot. A few folks suggested, ‘Hey, maybe we’ll take it down to a midpoint, $700 or $500 or something like that, something in the middle below 1000,’ putting it in order with the other groups. But then when the vote came out, it was pretty lopsided.”
In the Technician article, Yocum and Hoy differed in opinion, but Yocum is still quoted by Technician to have supported the gay community on campus at the time. Yocum is quoted saying, “I think a lot of people on campus are unaware that the people they come into contact with are gay. The students are not aware that a person’s sexual preference makes little difference in a person’s worth.”
Yocum mentioned his support of the Gay Awareness Week Bill, despite it not winning the Student Senate vote, was not met with any real criticism or political issues for him.
“It seemed like a non-event back then,” Yocum said. “It had to be later that all this stuff about, ‘They’re recruiting or they’re converting’ whatever that sort of narrative about the LGBTQ+ community. … That community just never seemed to me, in my personal experience, to be that, ‘I’m going to be recruiting your children’; those sorts of narratives just never rang true to me.”
Yocum also said the Gay and Lesbian Alliance did eventually have their awareness week and were able to set up a booth as well. Unfortunately, some folks in ski masks did come up and turn over the table, according to Yocum.
Yocum also provided some context regarding the climate for LGBTQ students during his time as a student, specifically concerning the start of the HIV/AIDS crisis. He said he felt many of his friends who were out at this time thought that this crisis was far enough away from them since the majority of the cases were coming from San Francisco and New York City. Yocum also said the media coverage was pretty sensationalizing as well.
“It was probably like seven or eight years ago, but I found out that some of those people had passed away; it was pretty sobering,” Yocum said. “That’s just my impression, and I have to say it’s secondhand. It’s just from what folks told me in that contemporary setting back then.”
Similarly, Yocum said the AIDS/HIV epidemic was likely far and away from the Technician staff at the time, as there wasn’t really local North Carolina coverage at all. He said journalistic coverage on the epidemic was mostly done through large, national media outlets, but even then, he said it was iffy for them to talk about it all.
“Long story is that I don’t think [Technician] were any better or worse than other media in covering the topics,” Yocum said. “I’m pretty sure that this coverage was the anomaly. The coverage of this bill was probably the only one or two stories that they did about the group.”
If you have any information or a potential feature for this retrospective series, please contact the news editor at technician-news@ncsu.edu.
