IDAHO FALLS — About two thousand people gathered to attend and march in the 12th annual Idaho Falls Pride celebration Saturday morning.

This year’s parade and festival centered on the theme “Reflections of Pride.”

“People need to know that wherever they are, they’re fine. So I think that’s important too,” Idaho Falls Mayor Rebecca Casper said during the parade.

Casper marched alongside Idaho Falls City Councilman John Radford, who added his support for the LGBTQ+ community.

“We’re here to support pride, and we’re excited that they feel welcome in our community,” Radford said. “We’re really grateful for all their talents that they bring to our community, and (we’re) here to support them.”

GALLERY: Thousands participate in Idaho Falls Pride on Saturday

The parade started at the Unitarian Universalist Church, crossed through the Idaho Falls Greenbelt River Walk across the Broadway bridge to the Westbank Convention Center and finished back at the stage next to Memorial Drive and E Street.

“I’m nonbinary, so pride means a lot to me to see all of us representing ourselves as our true selves. It’s very important to be authentic and true to yourself,” said Mel Campbell, a parade participant.

Following the parade, a family-friendly festival continued with music and performers from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“It’s important to have this gathering here in Idaho Falls because it’s hard to find your community in Idaho Falls as an LGBTQIA person, and there’s not a lot of safe spaces for people who are not straight right now in the community,” Idaho Falls Pride development director Kelly McCary said.

McCary presented local activist Theron McGriff with the Idaho Falls Pride Community Award.

Claire Pincock brought her family to support Saturday’s event.

“Pride means a lot to me,” she said. “I have a lot of family members who are queer. I’m queer, and just the ability for people to get to be who they are without fear, it means everything to me. I would do anything to make sure that people feel like they belong in this world and they belong with their community.”

Pride events will continue Sunday at 2 p.m., when a Rainbow Narratives Question and Answer forum will be held at The Art Museum Of Eastern Idaho.

Finally, Chukars Pride Night will be held on Friday, June 28 with tickets available online or at the stadium.

The event was preceded by an adult’s only drag show on Friday at the Westbank Convention Center.

McCary acknowledged pride events can be controversial in Idaho, but said organizers are confident in moving forward anyway.

“Everyone’s entitled to their opinion,” she said. “We ensure that our events are safe. … For the most part, we just do our thing, and we let everybody else do theirs.”

Very few protesters were noted along the route.

Volunteers from Christ Community Church were passing out Christian literature along the River Walk and said they were previously unaware the pride celebration was occurring Saturday.

“I do appreciate that we have free speech in this country, that people are free to express their lifestyles and opinions in public without fear of retribution,” Carl Pearson said. “It’s not a lifestyle that I would agree with or endorse, but I very much respect people’s right to live that lifestyle if that is their decision.”

Amy Taylor helped found Open Arms of Idaho after her son Jackson came out as gay when he was 14-years-old.

They started off taking him to youth groups in Utah, she said.

“He loved it so much finding kids like him that he decided we needed something here,” Taylor said.

Today, the “Rainbow Youth” group meets from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. every third Wednesday at the Community Youth in Action building on 574 4th Street. It is for LGBTQ+ youth ages 14 to 18 and their allies. A separate Parent Support Group is held during the same time for parents as well.

“(It’s) for parents who maybe are struggling with how to support your child because the statistics show that if an LGBTQ kid has support of one adult in their life, their chance of suicide decreases 40%,” Taylor said.

Open Arms of Idaho is designed for both youth and parents to navigate the difficult space between religious faith and sexual orientation, said board member Jason Cooper, who has had a son and father come out to him as gay.

“It’s great for us to understand that we’re not alone in this, that there are others like us, and that there is a way for our children to thrive and for us to accept them and just be there for them,” Cooper said.

Nathan Harden works at no cost on church buildings and the occasional pastor’s home across the Intermountain West.

He’s been volunteering full-time for 24 years.

“I just felt like the Lord was calling me to do something; I didn’t know what,” Harden recently told the Utah Idaho Southern Baptist Convention. “He freed me up from debt and stuff in my life, and I think He did it so I’d be free to come out here.”

That was in the year 2000. Harden had traveled from his home near Memphis, Tennessee, on a two-week missions trip to Bountiful, Utah, with others from Tennessee.

“Bountiful is where the Lord said, ‘This is where I want you to come back to,’” Harden said.

Harden, a Southern Baptist “before he was born,” he said, had worked for 11 years as a service technician for Verizon communications company in the Memphis, Tennessee, area when he determined God wanted him in the West. One of those people with a gift for “fixing things,” he was a natural for a construction mission trip.

‘Kept calling me back’

Harden, then 35, traveled from Bountiful to Salmon, Idaho, to help work on an expansion of Salmon Valley Baptist Church’s building for a couple weeks before returning to Bountiful and then back to Salmon.

“The Lord kept calling me back,” Harden said. “They had plenty of work to do.”

In the years since, Harden has been as far south as American Samoa and as far north as Calgary, Alberta, in Canada. He’s also worked for the Lord in Colorado, Montana, California and Wyoming.

“We do a lot of remodel and repair, more so than new buildings,” Harden said. “Cornerstone [Church,] the old First Southern [in Salt Lake City] was a remodel (the church now is named Gospel Light in Salt Lake City, a part of the Gospel Family of Churches). They had started demolition on the sanctuary interior. We took it from that demolished state and redid the entire sanctuary.

“At Crossroads [Church] in Sandy, they had a house that had been converted into a church,” Harden continued. “We remodeled their Sunday School [classrooms], bathrooms and entry points.”

He ramrodded the construction in 2012 of a new church building for Lemhi River Cowboy Church in Tendoy, Idaho, a mission of Salmon Valley Baptist Church.

“They wanted simple, a 30×80 [foot] building,” Harden said. “It was all missions teams that built it. I was kind of the foreman, oversaw it all, got material and did the finish work.

“We were worshipping in it before finishing, four weeks after we started,” Harden continued. “It took seven or eight months to get it all completed. A lot of people from Salmon helped, some on a daily basis. We got help from all over the place.”

Harden estimates he’s worked on at least 80 churches, mostly in Utah and Idaho. He’s never had a major injury. “Mostly stitches, that’s the main thing,” Harden said. “I gave myself a black eye once with a crowbar.”

All in the family

Harden met, worked with and ultimately married Amber Watkins in 2006. “The Lord grew us together,” Harden said. The couple have two daughters.

“I felt a call to missions even before I met him,” Amber Harden said. “I help with construction, homeschool and whatever needs to be done.”

Before their firstborn, Kelly, married, she “liked to roof, but mostly she loves loves loves meeting people,” Harden said. “She’s got friends all over Utah and Idaho.”

Faith, now 13, “loves to help roof and sometimes she likes to help with flooring,” Harden said. “She’ll paint. She’s getting to do a little bit of everything. She likes it for the most part.”

The Harden family is booked solid for June and July, but August still has some space. He works as a volunteer, but churches need to supply the materials.

“Rob Lee [executive director of the Utah Idaho Southern Baptist Convention] is good about letting me know what’s going on, and people just call me, and sometimes I hear about a project and call them up,” Harden said.

The state convention fundraised the money in 2008 for Harden to purchase a new Jayco Eagle fifth-wheel trailer, which he uses in his ministry. It has two bedrooms and one bath.

“It just provides all our needs,” Amber Harden said.

Nathan and Amber Harden became Mission Service Corps self-funded missionaries endorsed by the North American Mission Board in 2010. The designation allows their donors who send them money through NAMB to receive a tax credit for their support of the ministry, which is not limited to construction.

“We help in VBS, camps and cook for the Southeast Idaho Rodeo Bible Camp three weekends out of the year,” Harden said. That’s in Downey the last week in June, Rigby the last week in July and Labor Day weekend in Jerome, Idaho.

“We also do work on pastors’ homes, and that’s mostly remodel and repair,” Harden continued. “We’ll work with mission teams on community projects like handicap ramps, and well, so many different things.”

Harden works year-round in construction on everything — framing, drywall, siding, roofing, flooring, paint, finish carpentry, concrete — except plumbing and electrical since he’s not licensed for them.

“I’m going to keep doing what the Lord tells me to do,” Harden said. “I’m not going to change until He tells me to change.”

Note – This article was originally published by the Utah Idaho Southern Baptist Convention. Feature photo courtesy of UISBC.

The 2024 Oregon football schedule will get started sooner than we know it. And, thankfully, the first Oregon football game of the 2024 college football season will be at home in Eugene, Oregon as the Oregon Ducks face off against the Idaho Vandals in Autzen Stadium.

This will mark the start of a new era for Dan Lanning and the Oregon football team as the Ducks embark on their inaugural season with the Big Ten.

The Oregon Ducks vs. Idaho matchup serves as a starting point for the season because, well, it’s quite literally the start of the Ducks’ 2024 campaign. In what many Oregon football fans are hoping will be a big season, this game provides Lanning and his Ducks with the perfect opportunity to set the tone for the season and showcase some substance to back all of the offseason hype that has been building. 

Plus, well, it’s Idaho. The Vandals are going to get a nice little payday to help support their athletics department (which is a good thing for the sport, to be completely and totally honest and supportive of college football as a whole) and the Ducks get a chance to fine tune a few things before getting into more challenging contests (which is a good thing for a team with national title aspirations).

It’s a win-win for all involved. Except, you know, Idaho on the field.

This should be a pretty easygoing game for Lanning and the Oregon football team. There’s honestly no reason why the Ducks take an early, commanding lead and get some of the younger guys on the roster some reps in the second half before winning big. 

But, again, this is just the start.

So, for fans looking to plan their fall around Duck football, start paying attention to everything regarding the 2024 Oregon football schedule. This is the first of seven games that will be played in Autzen Stadium during the regular season this year. There will be tougher contests later down the line (Ohio State, Michigan, and Wisconsin, to name a few).