Carolyn Hall and Candy Marcum have spent more than 40 years building support, community and visibility for LGBTQ people in Dallas. Now, the longtime partners are being recognised with a major North Texas LGBTQ Chamber lifetime achievement award, celebrating work shaped by counselling, crisis response and enduring activism.

Essential Takeaways

  • Four decades of service: Hall and Marcum began their activism in the early 1980s and have worked together for decades.
  • A pioneering counselling centre: Marcum helped open Oak Lawn Counseling Center, described as Dallas’ first openly LGBTQ counselling office.
  • A relationship rooted in community: The pair met through the centre’s board recruitment and later began dating at Razzle Dazzle Dallas.
  • AIDS crisis backdrop: Their early work unfolded as HIV and AIDS devastated Dallas’ LGBTQ community.
  • A significant honour: They’re receiving the Jack Evans and George Harris Lifetime Achievement Award at the Pride in Business Celebration, Awards and Business Expo.

Two activists, one lasting partnership

Some partnerships begin quietly, with a meeting that lingers in the memory. For Carolyn Hall and Candy Marcum, it was a board meeting connected to Oak Lawn Counseling Center, where Hall heard Marcum’s voice before properly meeting her. According to Dallas Voice, that moment stayed with her. [6]

They met in 1983, when both were in other relationships, but their paths continued to cross. By 1986, they were single and went on their first date at Razzle Dazzle Dallas, a Pride celebration held on Cedar Springs Road. It was a distinctly community-centred beginning, with the city’s LGBTQ scene providing both the setting and the spark. [2]

Six months later, Marcum moved in with Hall. It might not be the financial advice she’d give clients, but it clearly worked for them. Their personal story soon became inseparable from the wider work they were doing for Dallas’ LGBTQ community. [6]

Oak Lawn Counseling Center arrived when support was scarce

Marcum’s activism took shape in 1981, when she and Howie Daire opened Oak Lawn Counseling Center. At the time, an openly LGBTQ counselling service was not merely a professional venture; it offered a rare place where people could speak honestly about identity, relationships and family life. [6]

The centre also became part of Dallas’ response to the AIDS crisis. Daire was among the city’s early AIDS victims, while two other counsellors working alongside Marcum also died from the illness, according to the account of the centre’s history. [6]

That period demanded practical compassion. Some clients weren’t out to their families, so they brought parents into counselling sessions, where difficult conversations could happen with a professional present. It’s a reminder that activism often looks less like a rally and more like making one room safer for one family at a time. [6]

Their award carries Dallas LGBTQ history with it

The lifetime achievement award is named for Jack Evans and George Harris, two prominent Dallas LGBTQ advocates whose public service helped shape the city’s gay rights movement. D Magazine and The Dallas Morning News both highlighted Harris’ long influence on North Texas LGBTQ life after his death. [4], [5]

It’s only the fourth presentation of the honour. Earlier recipients included Evans and Harris, Mark Shekter, and Vivian Armstrong and Louise Young, whose recognition prompted the award’s renaming. That short list gives the prize a weight beyond a standard industry accolade. [1]

Hall and Marcum’s selection therefore connects several generations of local activism. Their work belongs to the same continuing story as the organisers, advocates and community builders who helped establish Dallas’ Gayborhood and pushed LGBTQ rights into public view. [3], [4]

Why their story still matters today

Dallas’ LGBTQ community has changed dramatically since the early 1980s, but the need for trusted support hasn’t disappeared. New challenges, shifting political debates and pressure on LGBTQ institutions mean that community infrastructure remains just as important, even when the work looks different. [3], [7]

The Dallas Way’s historical accounts and the LGBT Chamber’s ongoing business advocacy show how broad that infrastructure has become. It includes counselling, archives, business networks, Pride events and organisations that make professional and social life more welcoming. [6], [7]

Hall and Marcum’s example also says something useful about sustainable activism. Movements need passion, but they also need people willing to keep showing up, serve clients, build organisations and stay connected through hard years. That kind of work rarely makes the loudest headlines, yet it’s often what keeps a community standing.

A lifetime award, and a living legacy

The North Texas LGBTQ Chamber will honour Hall and Marcum at its Pride in Business Celebration, Awards and Business Expo. The event recognises their individual contributions, but it also acknowledges what they’ve achieved as a team over more than four decades. [1], [7]

Their journey began with a counselling centre and a chance meeting, then continued through the AIDS crisis and the steady expansion of LGBTQ visibility in Dallas. For many people, that history isn’t distant at all. It’s the foundation beneath the community they know today.

Their award is a celebration of the past, but it also offers a useful challenge for the future: protect the spaces that help people find support, connection and a voice.

Four decades on, Hall and Marcum’s activism remains a shared act of care.

Source Reference Map

Story idea inspired by: [1]

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