(ABC 6 News) – The first Pride festival in Rochester occurred in 1998, at Central Park in downtown. Bob Werner and Jim Helget were part of the group that organized the event.

Bob and Jim were members of the now dispersed Gay and Lesbian Community Services organization. The group hosted social events for both open and closeted members of the LGBTQ+ community, while also fighting against discrimination in the workplace.

Jim was a founding member of the organization and remembers the isolation the community felt prior to forming the group.

“We all kind of socialized but we did it very under cover,” Jim said. “Some of us were out at work, but very few of us.”

Bob joined several years after GLCS was founded, but became one of the most vocal advocates for the community.

Bob wrote Letters to the Editor in local papers, contributed to a publication called the “Rochester Gayzette” and took part in a task force for Minnesota’s governor.

“There was this idea that sort of gay people only lived in San Francisco or New York,” Bob said. “So I decided for myself I wanted to be open and honest so that people could see that this is really about people that live and work in Rochester.”

Bob was also part of a push to strike down a constitutional amendment in Minnesota that would have defined marriage as being between a man and a woman back in 2012.

That amendment failed in the 2012 election, and same-sex marriage was legalized in Minnesota the following year.