Rosebud & Thorne

Since 1977 it has become longest-running underage court in the world.

In 1977 as the underage club Mildred’s Palace located in the ballroom of the Pythian Building in downtown Portland was coming together, Bill Hicks, one of the young people along with Lanny Swerdlow transformed the space into an underage night club. Bill brought up the fact that it seemed that Dahl and Penne, Club Northwest now the Magic Gardens, and even Darcelle’s all had drag performers which held audience attention and brought in extra revenue. Why not underage shows? Thus began Rosebud and Thorne. The ad below Left is from the Northwest Gay Review, July/August 1977.

Here’s Bill telling the story in his own words:

Genesis of Rosebud and Thorn

By William Hicks aka

Rosebud II Betty Bomber

After going over in my head as how to start this little history one item came up again and again, and that was “How I felt I was one of the ‘lucky’ ones”. That is, being gay and being able to “come out” in the 70s as a gay teenager. I grew up in Portland and went to Marshall High School where I met a couple of gay kids in the drama (not draama!) dept. These friends of mine provided a conduit to the greater gay youth community in Portland, as small as it was, and ultimately led me to meet Lanny Swerdlow, who at the time was the publisher of The Northwest Gay Review where I pitched my idea of opening a gay youth center. This led to the opening of “Mildred’s Palace” in the Pythian Bldg., without which, Rosebud and Thorn would never have been born.

I’m getting ahead of the story though. Some of my first gay friends were 3-4 years older than me, over 21, and they did “drag”! Rene Dupree (later Rikki), Sadie Monsel, Katie KY, and Trish Dante (later Empress Trisha!) were my first drag friends, and they were all planning to attend Elsa Daniels’ stepping down in 1975, Oct 17th (I’ll never forget the date), at the Hilton Hotel ballroom. Thanks to the more lenient ID checking laws of the time I, as a boy in my three-piece rust corduroy suit, was able to get in. What an eyeful for a 15-year-old; all those drag queens and did it look fun! I couldn’t wait for my turn, and it happened at the big Spring contest instead of Miss Oregon where Merill Georges (either next ball, that Spring May 23rd, 1976, when “PR” or The “Princess Royal” ball was stepped down or up. Sorry I can’t remember now which), and then the next fall for

Instead of sports practice after school, I would hang out at Lucky’s wig shop and help her wash and set wigs. Due to this exposure, I was the only teen doing “big girl drag” or “full flame” as we called it then with showgirl lashes, liquid eyeliner, and full high-style wigs. The other kids my age were content to borrow their sisters’ tube tops, wedgies, curling irons, mascara, and were ready to hit the town.

By the Spring of ’76 I had developed a bit of notoriety running around “Camp” at 4th and Morrison and always ending up at Denny’s at 4th and Lincoln where we would drink gallons of coffee, smoke mountains of cigarettes, eat “throbbing” hot fudge sundaes and be “trashy table tramps” where we would run all over the restaurant visiting with each other. This began to exasperate the Denny’s management, so I decided to throw a drag party at the Heathman Hotel Hospitality Suite. This was before the hotel was spiffed up and it cost only $50 to rent the suite. The guests of notoriety were Trisha! Rikki, Sally Stunn, Lyle Constantine (as a boy) of Scandalls Bar fame, Tonna Lang, and Wanda Kentucky Jackson in drag for the first time (as Thelma).

We still ended up at Denny’s that night when someone at the table (‘can’t remember who) suggested that we choose a “queen” of the party…a “Spring Queen”, and we could have a party every season and choose a new queen. Everyone thought that would be real fun. What we would do is go around the table and applaud each queen who was at the table. I offered to disqualify myself, being the host, but everyone insisted I not, and indeed I was chosen the “Spring Queen” Valerie Dante.

A few weeks later I began planning the summer party and “Summer Queen” selection complete with invitations, but on about June 1st, Lanny called me and said he had procured a lease on the Pythian Ballroom, and we go to work immediately to open up our underage disco. We opened Mildred’s Palace the first weekend in July, ’76. After catching our breath, I had the idea of having the “Summer Queen” selection at Mildred’s and asked Lanny if we could do it. Lanny thought that would be good and said he would ask Mel-(ody), whom he was acquainted with, and was currently reigning if Melody would want to MC. Melody was thrilled with the invite and said, “I’ll do better than that, I’ll ‘recognize’ the selection officially as the junior Rose-‘bud’ court with the ‘Rosebud and her Prissy Missy Princesses’!”, and presumably suggested the original format of the three looks of ‘theme entrance, evening, and talent’. Along with this, another contest can be held in the spring for a masculine counterpart, ‘Thorn’, which was not a part of the first pageant.

Again, I felt I was not eligible to run considering I was currently the “Spring Queen” and was also a part owner of Mildred’s Palace which I felt gave me unfair exposure. But my peers didn’t feel the same way. They felt my participation in the event was important, “So…well…if you insist…!” Everybody thought I was a shoo-in to win as there were no other high-profile teen queens around. But as my title states… Rosebud ‘TWO’… not only did not win, I came in third, losing to talent AND beauty. Four of us came out as candidates. My dear friend to this day David Ward decided to run. David, who was a gymnast and dancer and had performed in high school plays, thought it would be fun to ‘get up there’, though he had never done drag. Tommy, who also hadn’t done drag, was a very pretty and demure boy. Kenny, who had experience as Tonna Lang, and myself.

That evening as the candidates showed up, I was feeling confident until Tommy showed up. Tommy had beautiful silky blonde hair down to his shoulders which his genuine mom, who was a beautician, beat up into an ethereal high style. Tommy looked like a blonde Audrey Hepburn. When Tommy walked into the room I went “GULP!”, and when he went down the runway that evening for the first time, he stole the crowd’s heart. David’s drag wasn’t particularly noteworthy, being his first time in drag that night, so it wasn’t until the second look, the ‘evening’ with the question-and-answer portion that David got any attention. David, being very articulate, spoke quite well and got himself noticed. But it all came down to the talent performance. David performed “Music in the Mirror” only two years old from A Chorus Line, a showstopper in itself, but David’s performance brought down the house complete with forward summersaults, back handsprings, and commanded a standing ovation from the crowd. That year, after the ballots were counted, the four contestants were on stage as Melody walked behind each one of us holding the tiara over our heads as the crowd would cheer. It was really between Tommy and David the whole night until it finally landed on David’s head, forever known as Rosebud I Roseanne Charity.

Roseanne was thrilled but never expected to win. David was planning to move to San Francisco that spring in six months. So what to do? What he did do was make history. Thanks to some invites and string pulling from Melody, Roseanne did several performances at Rose Ct functions in the bars where Roseanne firmly established the Rosebud title as legitimate. The whole idea of Rosebud and Thorn easily could have fizzled out were it not for the excitement David generated in the title. Roseanne and us, her Prissy Missy Princesses made our entrance at Melody and Harold’s stepping down and Candy and Calhoun’s coronation representing the Rosebud ct for the first time in 1977.

Disappointed that I didn’t win, but thrilled at the magnitude of this new institution, I resolved to run the next time and next time win. I didn’t have long to wait as Roseanne decided to step down that spring during the scheduled ‘Thorn’ event, six months early, in order to move to SF, and that is how the two titles became combined into one event. So, for a while, the ‘Thorn’ number was one behind the ‘Rosebud’ number.

For the second pageant, I changed my name to Dante West and was determined to do my utmost to blow the audience away. So, I erupted out of a papier mache volcano for my entrance and performed ‘The Cell Block Tango’ (only three years old) doing all six parts with costume changes on stage. I toned my look down and went after a 30s Jean Harlow effect. It was all enough to bring home the tiara, which I had the honor of receiving from and being recognized by Candi Wrapper. [John Meadows aka Candi Wrapper has had various titles in Portland, Mr. Hunky II and Rose Empress XX (1977)].

[Per an interview later, Thorn was added the following year - When Thorn is crowned it is with a medallion and Rosebud receives a tiara.] Michael Hall became my Thorn I.]

Though I have been absent from Rosebud and Thorn the last ten years I can’t imagine anyone eclipsing the enthusiasm and popularity of Rosebud III Wanda Kentucky Jackson. Windell (with an ‘I’) had such a way of connecting with people.

I will never forget sitting on my throne on stage while Wanda began her talent performance. It was ‘Starlove’ by Cherl Lynn. Wanda slowly emerged from atop the DJ booth, the crowd went into pandemic frenzy, screaming and cheering…and screaming…you couldn’t even hear the music! It was an earthquake. So much so that Sally Stunn, who was also running, and to perform next was so rattled, she came out onto the stage and…right then and there, dropped out, bless her heart. She said she just couldn’t go on and walked off the stage. Jefferson Bolt Smith reached the honor of Thorn II.

Rosebud IV saw the first real surprise. The club favorite for Rosebud was (a real female) Ursula who we thought was a shoo-in because she was there all the time and did lots of performing. This is also when I changed my name to Betty Bomber, which has stuck ever since. Lady Peacock was running and though she is now a legend, at the time, Woody had ID and was spending most of the time at the bars and so was not as well-known at what was now ‘The Metropolis’ down at 3rd and Burnside. This was Wanda’s stepping down and Wanda must have had 100 friends and family members to wish him well and that year blood proved to be thicker than water, hail RB IV Lady Peacock! And Thorn III Johnny B Cool. (Wes Urton)

By this time Rosebud and Thorn was firmly established and folks began looking forward to the pageant every year. In the mid-80s when one of the ‘Thorns’ stepped aside, someone was appointed the new ‘Thorn’ and the numbers became synchronized. I’ll have to leave those details to a ‘late’-early period scholar. I do remember after that another ‘Thorn’ went MIA and folks wanted to replace him and Lanny said, “Hold it, enough, only one Thorn and one Rosebud a year no matter if they stick around or not. The number is in sync, leave it at that.” I don’t know if this is still observed but I think it is a good call. Being this young, it is a very transitional period in young folks’ lives and people are just going to move around from time-to-time.

Now it has been 41 years without a year being missed. Were it not for the overlapping efforts of Lanny Swerdlow, Melody Starr, David Ward, and myself, humbly, The Rosebud and Thorn Court would not be the longest-running underage court in the world.

Through the years with Rosebud and Thorn –

Videos are available:

https://youtu.be/Bj_Fojhp0d8 [approximately 2014]

https://youtu.be/FrSLBj5MpDA [Rosebud & Thorn 24 with Klub Kids in Portland, OR Gay Pride Parade - 2000]

Facebook page: The Rosebud & Thorn Pageant | Portland OR (facebook.com)

The following are from Lanny Swerdlow’s archives.