Local
Longtime Gay Men’s Chorus member Russell Capps dies at 54
Served as executive for large non-profits
Russell Craig ‘Russ’ Capps, a longtime resident of Kensington, Md., who worked for most of his career as a chief financial officer and chief operating officer for large non-profit organizations and who served many years as a singer and board member of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C., died Aug. 19 at the age of 54.
His friend Michael Hill said the cause of death was complications associated with a heart attack.
A write-up about his life provided by Hill on behalf of Capps’ family says that since 1997, when he first met the man who later became his husband, Kenneth Yazge, in Rehoboth Beach, Del., the two shared more than two decades together, among other things, “hosting some of the most incredible dinner parties” and traveling with a large circle of friends and loved ones.
“The number of people who claimed Russ as their best friend is countless,” the write-up sent to the Washington Blade by Hill says. “He had an intensity for those he loved and would go to the ends of the earth to help anyone who needed him,” it says.
The write up notes that for much of his adult life Capps was a “bedrock leader” for the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C. Among other things, he served as the chorus’s treasurer and on its board of directors.
His deepest love, the write-up says, was his 14-year stint as a member of the chorus’s ensemble known as Potomac Fever, with whom he traveled for singing engagements and performed at the first inaugural concert for President Barack Obama and later at the first LGBT reception at the Obama White House.
According to the write-up, Capps most recently worked as COO for the American Foreign Service Association. Prior to that he served as CFO for the Construction Specifications Institute and held similar positions at the American Dental Education Association and the D.C.-based Center for Development & Population Activities
He also served for 12 years as CFO at the Association of Corporate Counsel and was active for many years as a leader and panelist for the American Society of Association Executives, the write-up says.
Capps received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Virginia’s Radford University and was a graduate of Rebert E. Lee High School in Springfield, Va.
The write-up says Capps and Yazge, who married in 2013, “saw each other through life’s great ups and downs, including renovating their Kensington house, selling and starting businesses and new jobs, and buying a second home in Rehoboth Beach, an escape that they fled to any time they could and one that they shared generously with family and friends.”
Capps is survived by his husband, Kenneth M. Yazge; his brother, Robert L. Capps, Jr.; his niece, Brittany Capps; and his nephew, Stephen Capps. He is predeceased by his parents, Robert and Mary.
A celebration of Capps’ life is scheduled to be held at Foundry United Methodist Church in D.C. on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2019, at 1 p.m. The write-up provided by Hill says donations in lieu of flowers can be made to the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C. at gmcw.org.
Virginia
Gay Va. State Sen. Ebbin resigns for role in Spanberger administration
Veteran lawmaker will step down in February
Alexandria Democrat Adam Ebbin, who has served as an openly gay member of the Virginia Legislature since 2004, announced on Jan. 7 that he is resigning from his seat in the State Senate to take a job in the administration of Gov.-Elect Abigail Spanberger.
Since 2012, Ebbin has been a member of the Virginia Senate for the 39th District representing parts of Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax counties. He served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria from 2004 to 2012, becoming the state’s first out gay lawmaker.
His announcement says he submitted his resignation from his Senate position effective Feb. 18 to join the Spanberger administration as a senior adviser at the Virginia Cannabis Control Authority.
“I’m grateful to have the benefit of Senator Ebbin’s policy expertise continuing to serve the people of Virginia, and I look forward to working with him to prioritize public safety and public health,” Spanberger said in Ebbin’s announcement statement.
She was referring to the lead role Ebbin has played in the Virginia Legislature’s approval in 2020 of legislation decriminalizing marijuana and the subsequent approval in 2021of a bill legalizing recreational use and possession of marijuana for adults 21 years of age and older. But the Virginia Legislature has yet to pass legislation facilitating the retail sale of marijuana for recreational use and limits sales to purchases at licensed medical marijuana dispensaries.
“I share Governor-elect Spanberger’s goal that adults 21 and over who choose to use cannabis, and those who use it for medical treatment, have access to a well-tested, accurately labeled product, free from contamination,” Ebbin said in his statement. “2026 is the year we will move cannabis sales off the street corner and behind the age-verified counter,” he said.
Maryland
Steny Hoyer, the longest-serving House Democrat, to retire from Congress
Md. congressman served for years in party leadership
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and LISA MASCARO | Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the longest-serving Democrat in Congress and once a rival to become House speaker, will announce Thursday he is set to retire at the end of his term.
Hoyer, who served for years in party leadership and helped steer Democrats through some of their most significant legislative victories, is set to deliver a House floor speech about his decision, according to a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.
“Tune in,” Hoyer said on social media. He confirmed his retirement plans in an interview with the Washington Post.
The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
District of Columbia
Kennedy Center renaming triggers backlash
Artists who cancel shows threatened; calls for funding boycott grow
Efforts to rename the Kennedy Center to add President Trump’s name to the D.C. arts institution continue to spark backlash.
A new petition from Qommittee , a national network of drag artists and allies led by survivors of hate crimes, calls on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding to the center until “artistic independence is restored, and to redirect support to banned or censored artists.”
“While Trump won’t back down, the donors who contribute nearly $100 million annually to the Kennedy Center can afford to take a stand,” the petition reads. “Money talks. When donors fund censorship, they don’t just harm one institution – they tell marginalized communities their stories don’t deserve to be told.”
The petition can be found here.
Meanwhile, a decision by several prominent musicians and jazz performers to cancel their shows at the recently renamed Trump-Kennedy Center in D.C. planned for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve has drawn the ire of the Center’s president, Richard Grenell.
Grenell, a gay supporter of President Donald Trump who served as U.S. ambassador to Germany during Trump’s first term as president, was named Kennedy Center president last year by its board of directors that had been appointed by Trump.
Last month the board voted to change the official name of the center from the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts to the Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. The revised name has been installed on the outside wall of the center’s building but is not official because any name change would require congressional action.
According to a report by the New York Times, Grenell informed jazz musician Chuck Redd, who cancelled a 2025 Christmas Eve concert that he has hosted at the Kennedy Center for nearly 20 years in response to the name change, that Grenell planned to arrange for the center to file a lawsuit against him for the cancellation.
“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment — explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure — is classic intolerance and very costly to a non-profit arts institution,” the Times quoted Grenell as saying in a letter to Redd.
“This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt,” the Times quoted Grenell’s letter as saying.
A spokesperson for the Trump-Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Washington Blade asking if the center still planned to file that lawsuit and whether it planned to file suits against some of the other musicians who recently cancelled their performances following the name change.
In a follow-up story published on Dec. 29, the New York Times reported that a prominent jazz ensemble and a New York dance company had canceled performances scheduled to take place on New Year’s Eve at the Kennedy Center.
The Times reported the jazz ensemble called The Cookers did not give a reason for the cancellation in a statement it released, but its drummer, Billy Hart, told the Times the center’s name change “evidently” played a role in the decision to cancel the performance.
Grenell released a statement on Dec. 29 calling these and other performers who cancelled their shows “far left political activists” who he said had been booked by the Kennedy Center’s previous leadership.
“Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome,” the Times quoted him as saying in his statement.
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