Range Iron Pride Festival Expands to a Three-day Celebration as the LGBTQ Community Grows Closer

Mark your calendars, this year’s Range Iron Pride festival is August 10 and will also include a weekend full of events.

Paul Skrbec (he/him), executive director of Range Iron Pride, said they are focusing on having vendors from throughout Minnesota at the event and building in entertainment throughout the day.

He said drag performances are a guarantee, but they are hoping to have local and musical artists as well as other types of entertainment alongside local food vendors.

“We’re kind of piggybacking off of the formula that a lot of pride organizations have as far as the day of the festival, so we hope that we’ll be able to execute that in a way that lots of people expect,” Skrbec said.

Alongside the usual Pride festivities, he said people enjoyed the vendors that provided resources that may not be readily available for the people living there. Skrbec said they look for providers in the Duluth, Grand Rapids, or Hibbing area that specialize in mental health and personal wellness alongside the more practical day-to-day needs.

“I try to keep money in the community or at least keep my hard-earned dollars with vendors and providers that are going to support and be allies of the community or maybe even hopefully be members of the community,” Skrbec said. “We’re trying to build that out in terms of our vendors and we’ve got a really good start on it from last year and we’re hoping to expand on that.”

He said they’re working with the Lyric Center of Performing Arts to host a drag brunch on Sunday, August 11. They’re also hoping to partner with a local business to have an event on Friday evening, but that’s still in the works.

Skrbec said he got involved with planning Pride last year, which was their second year holding it, where they decided to host a larger event than their first one.

He said the first Pride festival was relatively small as it was quietly done due to concerns about public response. The bigger event last year was well attended with about 150 to 200 participants and 20 vendors, which Skrbec said was beyond their expectations.

Skrbec said while planning, they realized Range Iron Pride needed to be more than just the festival.

“We needed to be change advocates to help build community on the Iron Range,” Skrbec said.

They were able to raise enough money to start a new organization and recently became a non-profit organization, opening doors for sponsorships, according to Skrbec.

“That’s going to help us jumpstart the organization and help us do more things to build space in the community that’s welcoming of the entire LGBTQ community,” he said.

Skrbec said a central part of their mission is to keep people in the LGBTQ+ community connected.

Range Iron Pride hosts social nights every third Thursday of the month to help build community and provide a safe space for people to spend time together. Skrbec said having a scheduled time to meet has helped the LGBTQ+ community in the Iron Range come together more.

“We don’t have any bars that are traditionally like Twin Cities-based places where the community comes together and we don’t have as much of a network as we do with some of the metro areas,” Skrbec said. “By having something on a monthly basis, it gives people lots and lots of opportunities to just continue to build their networks.”

Events for the LGBTQ+ community in the Iron Range are limited, but Skrbec said the Lyric Center and The Do You, a club in the area, offer programs for the community and create a welcoming environment for social gatherings.

Besides these two places, people in the community would have to travel to Duluth to connect, which is about an hour away from Virginia.

“That’s where we feel that the pride organization and our mission helps to support building that community,” Skrbec said.

Skrbec said as towns in the Iron Range have shrunk over the last 40 to 50 years, it is important to have the resources along with the ability to access others within the community.

“It’s very hard to live in an environment where you feel even mildly isolated. Everybody needs friends, everybody needs someone to bounce ideas off of,” Skrbec said. “If you’re raising a family and you know other LGBTQ parents raising kids, being able to network for those types of stories and those experiences is really important.”

Skrbec was born and raised in Gilbert, a small town of about 1,700 people, where he said growing up was very isolating. He said he didn’t have a lot of access to the LGBTQ community or experience what it was like to be a part of it.

“There were a lot of traumas from growing up that I personally had to unlearn and work through over the years,” Skrbec said. “Coming back to the Iron Range, I still see that.”

He said he recently visited Rock Ridge High School, the local school district for Virginia and the surrounding area and sat down with students from the local GSA. He found his experiences of being isolated are still present on the Iron Range.

“That’s one of the reasons why we are focusing on being visible, making sure that our voices are out there, making sure that kids that are growing up are not growing up in an environment where they feel isolated,” Skrbec said.

Skrbec said he was surprised by the number of parents of LGBTQ+ children attending their last Pride celebration. He said the parents were able to connect and in some cases that was the first time they were able to connect and share experiences.

“We sometimes forget when we grow up in rural Minnesota that we’re having our own challenges in terms of who we are, but our parents and our families are often left behind with no resources,” Skrbec said. “That’s one of the really beautiful things of last year was to see so many parents coming out because their children were part of the community.”

Skrbec said Range Iron Pride is excited for its third Pride celebration and the growth that comes with being a non-profit organization.

“My hope is that we will carry on and continue to be a regular celebration on people’s calendars, to provide resources locally, but also to provide people that are regionally in Duluth or other close by areas to come and share Pride with us,” he said.

Range Iron Pride
Saturday, August 10
Virginia, MN
www.ironpride.org