On April 15th, 2014, Calgary lost five bright and promising young people - the talented, dedicated, and gregarious Lawrence Hong among them. Hong was an urban studies student at the University of Calgary, not far from graduation at the time of the tragedy.

Friends and relatives remember him as the perennially optimistic sort, exuding boundless energy and a surprising generosity of spirit, and as a warm and welcoming presence within Calgary’s queer community.

James Demers, executive director of the Fairy Tales Presentation Society, took some time away from preparing for the upcoming Fairy Tales Queer Film Festival to answer a few questions about his friend and colleague, Lawrence Hong.

GC: What are some things that stand out in your mind about Lawrence?

James Demers: The community has come together in a really spectacular way. I think it was at least two-thirds queer people at his funeral, and there were 400 people there. It was like a reunion for a lot of us who worked with him. And the outpouring of community support has been really significant, which has been wonderful... It sounds like a cliché, but he was like a beacon of light in a really significant way for a lot of us, because he was perpetually thrilled about life.

He was enthusiastic always. I think he asked me when the volunteer orientation was for the festival every time I saw him, which was every couple of weeks. He won our volunteer of the year award during the last festival, which is the Gordon Sombrowski/Kevin Allen Award for Outstanding Volunteer Contribution... He was just a genuinely nice, reasonable, supportive person, and he would take care of people in ways that made it difficult to thank him, because you didn’t realize he had taken care of you until he was done.

GC: Could you give us an example of that?

JD: He would cold-call fellow students that he knew had a hard time getting up for classes and chat nonsensically about his night the night before, and they would be wide awake by the time he stopped talking... so when you got to class on time you would realize that he had essentially given you a wakeup call, but that’s not at all how he conveyed it.

GC: Lawrence sounds uncommonly dedicated.

JD: The guy went to university full time, he had two jobs, he started a non-profit within the urban planning department called C4, volunteered with Fairy Tales, volunteered with Pride, ARGRA [the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association], and Folk Fest. You know, I think that I don’t sleep very much, but I don’t think he could sleep, ever. I don’t know how he balanced it, but I think he just genuinely loved every aspect to life, and helping people, and being busy, and making a difference in a significant way... He is the reason the wheels turn, people like him. They are so important in these little ways that don’t get the glory.

GC: I understand that Calgary Transit organized charter busses to serve Lawrence’s memorial, and that the proceeds went to Fairy Tales?

JD: We were just informed. We didn’t have any hand in the planning whatsoever. A former professor of his and a mutual friend who was on our planning committee made the decision that if they were going to collect donations outside of his memorial fund, he would have wanted it to go to Fairy Tales, and I was just handed money... It was really incredible, and [the money] actually went into his memorial scrapbook, to get the supplies for it, get it ready, get it carried around town. That’s where most of it went. The rest of it, we’re talking about doing a larger community award for all the organizations he volunteered with, and potentially naming it after him. Nothing is set in stone yet, but that’s where the rest of that is going to go — to his memory, in whatever way we can deem appropriate, or what he would have liked.

The memorial scrapbook for Lawrence Hong will be available at Fairy Tales Queer Film Festival venues during the last weeks of May for friends, colleagues and well-wishers to view and contribute to. As for moving forward from the tragic loss of such an individual, Demers believes that Lawrence Hong would have advice for us about that, too.

"I think he would want us to get together and do what we would normally do. Remember why we all are a part of this community, and keep our connections."