Friday, June 21-Saturday, June 22: Capital City Pride Festival

Downtown Olympia

By Alec Clayton on June 20, 2013

Marlayna McBride and her entourage of drag queens from Jake's on 4th in Olympia have been asked to be grand marshals for this year's Capital City Pride.

"It is an absolute honor and privilege to have been asked to represent this prestigious title," McBride said. Miss McBride, aka Adam Geribaldi, lives in Tacoma but has become a gay Olympia icon. She takes part in Olympia's Pride Celebration every year, performing on stage, in the parade and behind the scenes, and she's been a judge for Pride Idol, which is held every year at The Urban Onion. "What a great time I've had with everything that I do. As an entertainer, I pride myself on absolute professionalism and take my audience and fan base very seriously."

Among her entourage are popular drag queens Deeva Devareaux (Geoff Lamb) and Flirticia Fondue (Troy Dazell) who will also be strutting their stuff at this year's Pride event.

Adam, the director of the shows at Jake's, has been doing drag "full on," to use his term, since 1996 when he was Mr. Gay Tacoma and performed in drag for the first time.

Marlayna, Deeva and Flirticia will be in the Pride parade "in face" and will perform on stage at Sylvester Park and again that night at Jake's. The festivities begin the night before, Friday, June 21, with a kickoff party at the Urban Onion. The parade down Capitol Way from the Capitol campus to Sylvester Park is Saturday, June 22, beginning at noon, and the festivities in the park with speeches, food and information booths, entertainment headlined by the Kim Archer Band and emceed by Gregory Conn, will be from 1 to 5 p.m. Conn and drag queen Kimber Lee will also be parade announcers from their booth atop the Governor's House Hotel.

Read Alec Clayton's full feature on the Capital City Pride Festival in Northwest Military's Music & Culture section.