The following individuals are going to be inducted into the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame later this year:
-- Lora Branch, 38, public health administrator and educator, video producer ( Kevin's Room ) and African-American lesbian and gay community activist, for her efforts to heighten awareness of HIV/AIDS and other health issues. She is currently head of the Chicago Department of Health Office of Gay and Lesbian Health.
-- Robert Castillo, 33, queer Latino activist, for launching grassroots sexual-minority campaigns during the past decade involving Latinas and Latinos, gender-identity bias, homophobic violence, neighborhood activism, human-rights laws, and HIV/AIDS.
-- Keith Elliott, 42, dancer, choreographer and producer, for a decade of creating and developing the annual Dance for Life, which has raised more than $1.5 million to fight HIV/AIDS, and for other artistic services.
-- Frank Goley ( posthumous, 1943-1994 ) and Bob Maddox, 66, for helping to pioneer openly gay businesses in Chicago since 1972 with their leatherwear store, at which Goley created many designs that found favor with leather and motorcycle enthusiasts worldwide.
-- Chuck Hyde, 39, businessman ( co-owner of Sidetrack bar ) and fundraising advisor, for 19 years of helping organizations to produce benefits and developing relations between them and underwriters in the business community.
-- Antonio David Jimenez, 47, social service administrator and HIV/AIDS educator, for more than a decade of health education and risk-reduction activism among African-American and Latino men who have sex with men; co-founder of Minority Outreach Intervention Project.
-- Michael Leppen, 48, philanthropist, fundraiser, and board member, for services to a large variety of community groups concerned with such issues as HIV/AIDS, youth, human rights and cancer among lesbians.
-- Ellen Meyers, 43, political organizer and Secretary of State Jesse White's assistant director of intergovernmental affairs, for 15 years of supporting human-rights laws, persons affected by HIV/AIDSs or aging, and electoral involvement.
-- Kathryn Munzer, 54, social services professional and volunteer arts booker, for 20 years of helping Mountain Moving Coffeehouse for Womyn and Children, developing lesbian musicians and other artists, and fostering lesbian culture.
Friends of the community: state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, 44, and author Studs Terkel, 89. Organization of the Year: Chicago Gay Men's Chorus.
The Chicago Commission on Human Relations Advisory Council on Gay and Lesbian Issues is in charge of the world's only municipally sponsored Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.
Look for the Hall of Fame fundraising celebrity auction Sept. 25 at Cellblock, with auctioneers Jessica Halem, Marlene Moore and David Boyer. The Hall of Fame ceremony will be Wed., Oct. 24, 5:30 p.m. in Preston Bradley Hall at the Chicago at Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington. It is a free event.