With the city of Prairie Village celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, two residents set their minds to embracing a first for the city: Prairie Village Pride.
Kevin Kinsella and Kassie McClure, who sit on the city’s diversity committee, spent the past three months alongside Councilmember Shelby Bartelt, the committee co-chair, planning the first-ever Prairie Village Pride for 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on June 6 at Harmon Park.
While the Prairie Village City Council approved $5,00 funding for a 2027 Pride event in April, this year’s event is happening with a leftover $2,000 in the diversity committee budget.
An attempt to kill the event on May 4 due to it not having been budgeted ahead of time failed in an 8-3 motion, with Councilmembers Nick Reddell, Terry O’Toole and Tyler Agniel voting to cancel the 2026 event. Councilmember Ian Graves was absent.
Kinsella, who was appointed to the diversity committee in February, said he and McClure “didn’t want to wait one minute longer” to celebrate the LGBTQ community in Prairie Village.
For McClure, celebrating Pride Month in Prairie Village has never been more important. She said there is an apparent “urgency to take away rights” from the LGBTQ community and “make the world harder” for the community, as there are 530 anti-LGBTQ bills working their way through cities and states.
In February, both the Kansas Senate and the House voted to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of Senate Bill 244, which invalidated transgender Kansans’ driver’s licenses and requires governmental entities to designate multi-occupancy bathrooms as either male or female.
“I think that doing (Prairie Village Pride) this year, we’re able to make a statement that love can move with the same urgency, and acceptance can move with the same urgency,” McClure said. “Creating safe spaces can move with the same urgency. We can match that, and we can do it for our community here.”
In the past couple of weeks, Prairie Village Pride has been the subject of social media backlash from accounts like Libs of TikTok and Charlotte O’Hara, a former county commissioner who is running for governor.
As for the negative backlash online, McClure said she doesn’t spend much time or energy on it because she believes it is not an accurate representation of the city she lives in — as evidenced by the support and love she’s received from the community.
“I think that that is why we chose this city, when my wife and I were looking to move here almost nine years ago now, is because that is the actual energy and love that I feel,” McClure said.
“We’re not going anywhere”
For Kinsella and McClure, the diversity committee’s 2026 Pride Month event is long overdue.
From the first meeting in March, the newly appointed diversity committee members hit the ground running to plan the June 6 event.
Kinsella said the city’s history, rooted in exclusion and a lack of diversity, reinforced his and McClure’s sense of urgency around Prairie Village Pride 2026.
“We felt that, especially on this 75th anniversary, that it’s time we start opening our doors and start welcoming queer folks to our community,” Kinsella said, “to show folks we are families, we are embedded in the community, we’re not going anywhere and we want everyone to welcome and to treat us like you would any heteronormative family.”
Kinsella said he hopes that this event inspires people in other communities to celebrate Pride Month, too.
Bartelt said it is important for her to be an ally and support the LGBTQ community. She said she sees this as an important event, particularly as a mom who plans to bring her children to Prairie Village Pride.
“I don’t know what their future looks like,” Bartelt said. “They will meet people in their school classrooms, out in public, and I think it’s really important for them to understand and see all types of families and individuals in every capacity of their lives.”
Residents weigh in after social media backlash
Since the announcement of Prairie Village Pride 2026, the June 6 event has received pushback from social media accounts like Libs of TikTok and O’Hara, one of several gubernatorial candidates on the ballot this year, as well as one public commenter at the June 1 city council meeting.
On May 29, Libs of TikTok encouraged its Facebook followers to reach out to Mayor Eric Mikkelson “to share your concerns about your tax dollars being used to confuse and groom kids.”
Kinsella told the Post that Prairie Village Pride is funded through the city’s transient guest tax, a tax specifically levied on guests staying at hotels in Prairie Village.
The only hotel in Prairie Village is The Inn at Meadowbrook, which Kinsella said means that next year’s Pride Month event will be partially funded by the England team’s stay at the boutique hotel this summer.
Aside from The Libs of TikTok, O’Hara, one of seven Republicans vying to replace Gov. Laura Kelly and one of 10 total gubernatorial candidates, made two Facebook posts about Pride month “dying everywhere” except Prairie Village.
In one post, O’Hara questioned whether the event was “grooming” children. She simultaneously applauded corporations that have “retreated” from Pride month in its marketing, saying that it appears that “Pride month is fading fast.”
“Time for Kansas to join Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Utah in declaring PROUDLY June, Traditional Family Month!!!,” O’Hara wrote in a June 3 Facebook post.
Several Prairie Village residents, following the Libs of TikTok social media post, told the city council on June 1 that they support Prairie Village Pride 2026.
This included Rick Wolfarth, who said he attended the first-ever Pride event in Gardner in 2021. He recalls an “unbelievable amount of joy” at Gardner’s Pride event.
Wolfarth said some residents have said “some truly vile things… publicly” about Prairie Village Pride, and he believes that’s why the event is necessary.
“To the detractors of this event, I want you to know your hate will never win and I hope to see you at the Pride festival this Saturday from 11 to 3 at Harmon Park,” Wolfarth said.
Others like residents David Magariel, Paul Gorelick, Erin Manning and Anne Melia all said they support Prairie Village Pride 2026.
Resident Barbara Cantrell was the sole public commenter who spoke against Saturday’s event.
Cantrell said there are residents “concerned about the city’s priorities” and the lack of recognition for “traditional holidays” like Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Independence Day, “and now, D-Day” on June 6.
Cantrell then recited one of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s definitions of “queer,” the definition of “odd, strange, weird.”
“Many of us find it deeply inappropriate to center a city-sponsored family event around this term (queer), especially when it’s directed toward children,” Cantrell said, before proclaiming “June as American month.”
“Parents should not have to explain to their kids why the city is highlighting odd or strange behavior.”
What to expect
The organizers say they expect attendees to have a great time on Saturday, with McClure hoping for the experience to feel “like a family picnic.”
Bartelt said she is excited to meet more community members who “can feel confident in having a person, personally, in their neighborhood and on city council that wants to advocate for them.”
The event, designed to foster community and promote inclusion, is free to the public and open to all ages. Some activities include the following, according to the city’s website:
- Live music and performances
- Family-friendly games and activities
- Guided yoga and mindfulness sessions
- Local vendors and organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas will offer educational resources
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