PENDLETON — Pride flags, drag queens and hundreds of people donning multi-colored clothing filled the streets of downtown Pendleton on Saturday, June 12, at the Proud Together Pride Parade supporting the LGBTQ community as part of Pride month.

The event, led by United Pendleton Pride, a group dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusivity in Umatilla County, began in Museum Park before attendees waltzed through the streets, carrying signs, singing and dancing while dozens more bystanders cheered from the sidewalks.

For many, the event showcased how far the community has come in recent years.

“It’s been amazing,” said Ryelynn Melton, a transgender American Indian girl, who transitioned over the past year. “I feel like you usually don’t see this aspect of the community. Not many people know there’s other LGBTQ members. And here you can just see everybody.”

A 15-year-old student at Nixyaawii Community School, Melton became the school’s first-ever transgender prom princess this year. She sold homemade cupcakes and cookies to purchase the flowing red dress she wore at the June 12 event, where she rode through town on a truck at the front of the parade.

“It’s beautiful, and it means the world,” said Melton, an enrolled member of the Seminole tribe in Oklahoma. “And it shows all the support that younger people have and how our town is changing from being so conservative.”

Early in the event, a handful of protesters carrying signs denouncing homosexuality stood across the street before approaching attendees. Eventually, dozens of people made a wall and blocked off the protesters. They left soon after.

But aside from those brief hostilities, the event was joyful.

Drag queens danced around the park, swinging around flag poles in red stiletto boots. Pendleton Mayor John Turner gave a speech asking for tolerance and acceptance after a year of political divisiveness. Art McConville, an elder from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, sang a prayer to bless the day.

“I’ve been loving getting in touch with the kids because, specifically, I want to be the person that I didn’t have growing up,” said Kenneth Prince, a drag queen who is gay and non-binary.

Prince, a local bartender and barista, said they had little to no support growing up in southeast Texas, and would sometimes get in fights about their sexual orientation. That’s why the Pride event meant the world to them.

“I didn’t think that this town, being so little and so red, that it would actually have anything like this,” they said. “I haven’t felt any negativity, and it’s honestly been the world.”

After the success of last year’s Pride march, United Pendleton founders Aiden Bork and Noah Wallace decided to follow up with a larger parade through town this year, getting permission and support from Turner and Pendleton Police Chief Chuck Byram. Police were on every corner during the parade, blocking off the streets.

“This is Pendleton,” said Bork, who is non-binary. “Depending on where you are in the town, it seems that there is a different side of Pendleton that you see. And I wanted to make it clear that all of this is Pendleton.”

PFLAG Pendleton, a group that has supported the local LGBTQ community since the mid-2000s, also helped sponsor and organize the event. But due to a disagreement between leaders of the two groups, PFLAG as an organization was not present.

“It was a conflict of views,” Bork said. “We decided we wanted United to stand on our own.”

Among the residents who have seen first-hand how Pendleton has changed is 35-year-old Ashley Jones, who attended the event.

At age 12, Jones came out as lesbian when she wore rainbow suspenders and ran through her school hallways yelling she was gay.

“I was the only gay person I knew in school,” she said.

In high school, Jones said she had to change in a separate room during gym class. To attend prom with her girlfriend, she said the school forced her to bring along a boy. And after kissing her girlfriend in the hallway, she was called to the principal’s office, where she said she was threatened with suspension. She fought back.

“I told them that’s not OK,” she said. “It’s not OK to allow other people to kiss their significant others in the hallway and single me out.”

One day, she recalled, a man even chased her down the street with a bat, calling her a name not appropriate to print.

Things have come a long way since then, Jones said. Now, she works for Eastern Oregon Center for Independent Living, finding housing for people with HIV. The organization donated $1,000 to United Pendleton at the event.

“It takes a lot of bravery to come down here and know that the whole town is seeing you here and you could possibly be in the newspaper,” she said. “It takes bravery. I’m proud of everyone that showed.”

She added: “Love is greater than hate.”