It took some time for Yellow Springs Mayor Pam Conine to understand her sexual orientation. She did not think it was an option growing up in Findlay, Ohio, but nonetheless had a “wonderful upbringing.”
During her time at Miami University in Oxford, she bore witness to protests against the Vietnam War in 1970, the civil rights movement, and the burgeoning feminist movement.
“All of this stuff like Venn diagrams was all starting to intersect and I was just steeped in all of that because of what I was doing being on a university campus at Miami,” Conine said.
At her university, she attended presentations during Women’s Week–one of them being “Lesbian 101.” The lecture was hosted by a lesbian detailing her experience in the early 1970s.
A woman knocked on her door that night. She said she wanted to talk after the presentation. They grew closer, regularly met for coffee, and eventually Conine came out to her.
“I had a very conservative upbringing, great childhood, got to Miami, and that is where I first started getting inklings of the fact that I may be a part of the LGBTQ movement myself,” Conine said.
A bloodied hammer and sickle
Following graduation, she started her teaching career in Piqua, north of Dayton. She embarked on an educational trip through the National Council for the Social Studies to the Soviet Union over Christmas break.
The Piqua Daily Call caught wind of her trip, and a reporter interviewed Conine shortly after she returned. One of the photos the newspaper ran featured her speaking to students next to a picture of Soviet leader Vladamir Lenin holding a hammer and sickle pasted on a tri-fold presentation board.
The photo sparked multiple letters to the editor from the community questioning Conine’s employment and labeling her a Communist. Her students were sending in letters defending her–Conine even sent one herself to clarify what the trip was about.
Then she received an unmarked envelope in the mail.
Inside the envelope was a bright pink slip of paper with a picture of a bloodied hammer and sickle, and a “disparaging message” directed at her. Her roommate called the police shortly after, and law enforcement took the envelope for evidence.
“(After,) my principal called me in and said, ‘Pam don’t write any more letters. Tell your students not to. We got to stop this,’” Conine said. “That was sort of my awakening to the big wide world and what’s out there if you say the wrong things.”
Good moral character
During Conine’s educational career, she said she was expected to be of “good moral character.”
It wasn’t just part of being a good teacher. It was a legal requirement and one that could jeopardize her career if she came out as a lesbian, Conine said.
She asked a friend who went to Miami University for advice to connect with other lesbians.
“She said, ‘Okay, here’s what you do,’” Conine recalled. “You go to Dayton, you call a cab company and you ask where the closest gay bar is,’ and that’s exactly what I did.”
Conine also learned about Sappho’s Army, a lesbian meeting group at the Dayton’s Women’s Center named after the Greek poet who wrote love stories for women on the isle of Lesbos.
“The bad news was that it was their last night of meeting,” she said. “The group was disbanding for various reasons. But sitting around that circle of 10 were five, if not six women who went on to become lifelong friends of mine.”
With her new friends, Conine found her social circle. Later in her Piqua career, she roomed with LGBTQ+-friendly teachers, even as she stayed in the closet.
“Now, was I still of good moral character? I felt I was,” she said.
Moving to Yellow Springs
Conine began serving as a substitute teacher in 1979 for Yellow Springs Middle School east of Dayton. With the help of her university friend, she was able to start full-time teaching and spent the next 45 years of her life there.
In the small rural village, Conine said she decided that she did not want to keep hiding her identity from the public eye.
“Once I got my job in Yellow Springs, there’s no way I could or I wanted to stay closeted,” she said. “The gay pride movement was raging [at this point]. And I thought I’ve been teaching here long enough that I don’t need to feel like I have to live in the closet perpetually.”
Conine started to go out in public with her partner and friends. They socialized, ate together, and were active in the community.
“It wasn’t like I came into school one day and said, ‘Kids, I want you to know I’m gay.’ Didn’t have to do that. I just started going out with my partner and my other friends,” she said.
A feminist women’s communal home affectionately called Hag Harbor became a popular social spot for Conine. Lesbians and ally feminists visited the house for their regular Friday night parties parties and author talks.
“We would collect around the piano at Hag Harbor and somebody would start playing songs written by and for women and we’d sing along,” Conine said “Other women were playing pool in the side room and somebody else was in the kitchen making egg rolls.”
The mayoral journey
By 2016, Conine was well-known as an active member of her Yellow Springs community.
Her interest in politics dated back to her time at Miami University and traced through her time both at Hag Harbor as well as a stint as a radio host at WYSO, a local station, which she described as an important outlet for her activism.
When former president Barack Obama remarked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat, his words stuck with Conine.
“He said if you want to make a change in the world, start locally,” she recalled. “My friends came to me and said, ‘If we support you, drive you around, feed you, give you some money, would you run for mayor of Yellow Springs?’ And I said yes.”
She was elected mayor in 2017, officially taking office on Jan. 1, 2018. She has been reelected twice to the position; her current term ends in 2026.
The position of mayor in Yellow Springs is different from most other cities. Mayor Conine is essentially the head of the judicial branch in Yellow Springs, not the legislative. It’s a position only in Ohio and Louisiana.
The mayor’s court typically hears traffic violations, all levels of misdemeanors and other offenses that don’t result in jail time, according to the ACLU of Ohio.
Conine is committed to being visible in her community. She has joined mayoral associations such as Mayors for a Guaranteed Income and Mayors Against LGBTQ Discrimination. She also took the Mayors’ Monarch Pledge through the National Wildlife Federation, vowing to protect monarch butterflies and help them thrive.
“Being an educator at heart, a big part of what I do is educate the community in what’s out there and what is available to help make our community a better place, and to live up to the ideals that we purport to,” Conine said.
Conine praised her community’s diversity and is quick to highlight the success of the community’s large Pride celebration. Though her sexual orientation is years past being a guarded secret, neither does it define her.
“I’m gay. When I do anything, I bring that facet,” she said. “It’s not a big deal. There’s my tagline. ‘The mayor is gay, it’s not a big deal.’” 🔥
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