Howard Brown Health Center awarded the Patrick and Mariterese Balthrop Family of Chicago and Austin its Friend For Life award Oct. 29. HBHC gives the award each year to those who have demonstrated ‘continuous commitment, persistent advocacy, and dedication of time and personal resources to promote the health of the LGBT community and to the institution.’
Previous Friend For Life winners include McDonald’s Corporation; U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Richard and Maggie Daley; and tennis star Billie Jean King. Patrick Balthrop is the CEO of Austin-based Luminex Corporation, a provider of diagnostic testing equipment and drug research. Besides serving on the board of directors, he and his family have made substantial contributions to HBHC since 1998. The release stated that Balthrop cites a very personal reason for his family’s commitment to HBHC: his 23-year-old-son, Patrick, Jr. The younger Balthrop is an openly gay sound designer, composer and musician in Boston who turned to his family and the center for support after coming out to his parents as a teenager in the late 1990s.
The ceremony was held at the Chicago Hilton and Towers, 720 S. Michigan, as part of the center’s annual gala. The event also celebrated the one-year anniversary of its Broadway Youth Center, which offers adolescents and young adults various services, including HIV testing, therapy and support groups. Other 2005 Friend For Life recipients included Children’s Memorial Hospital/ Howard Brown Collaboration and The Siragusa Foundation.