It is our honor to recognize central Iowa’s LGBTQ community with our annual LGBTQ Legacy Leader Awards. The LGBTQ community encompasses a range of compassionate leaders from a wide variety of vocations, all working together to solve problems and build a community that we can all be proud to call home. dsm magazine is once again collaborating with Capital City Pride for our eighth annual LGBTQ Legacy Leader Awards, where we will highlight four outstanding LGBTQ Iowans leading in their communities, as well as an emerging LGBTQ leader and an ally of the LGBTQ community.
Congratulations to the 2026 honorees! They will be recognized at a special event Sept. 10 at the Krause Gateway Center and featured in the dsm Sept/Oct publication. Event registration will be announced this summer.
2026 LGBTQ Legacy Leaders
Marlú Abarca, author, advocate, artist and nonprofit consultant.
Keenan Crow, director of policy and advocacy at One Iowa.
Gregory Neal, pastor at Grace United Methodist Church.
Matthea Little Smith, retired director of African American outreach for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Emerging leader Jordan Mix, education director for Iowa Safe Schools.
Ally Jill Bjorklund, choir teacher at Ankeny’s Southview Middle School and co-founder of Ankeny Pride.
Past Honorees
George Belitsos, Kayla Bell-Consolver, Shea Daniels, Pamela Duffy, Eileen Gebbie, Alexandra Gray, John Harper, Rich Hendricks, Tim Hickman, MD Isley, Dan Jansen, Jan Jensen, Mark Kassis, Eugenia Kutsch-Stanton, Terry Lowman, Tracy Lewis, Karen Mackey, Sharon Malheiro, Randy Mayer, Tristan Miedema, Rick Miller, Laurie Phelan, Sonia Reyes-Snyder, Jeorgia Robison, Shannon Samuelson, John Schmacker, Jordan Selha, Erin Sheriff, Jenny Smith, Bruce Teague, Scott Valbert, Aiden Vasquez, Jeremy Weiss, Aime Wichtendahl, Jonathan Wilson, Elle Wyant, and Daniel Zinnel, along with allies Kyle Christiason, John Forsyth, Rebecca Gruber, Terri Hale, Natali Justiniano Pahl, Connie Ryan and Rich Salas
Presenting Sponsor
Supporting Sponsor
