Walker Leigh Knight, Jr. – 50th Reunion Essay

Walker Leigh Knight, Jr.

1122 S Grant St

Denver, CO 80210

WalkerLKnight@gmail.com

720-837-0500

Spouse(s): Judson McDonald Jr. (2014)

Career: Division Manager, Director of Programming & Latin America, Spectravision Inc, 20 years; VP International, VP Programming, Group VP Product Management, On Command Corp, 10 years; VP Content Acquisition, Quadriga Americas, 3 years; Principal, Walker Knight Consulting, since 2007; VP Content and Ops, FidoTV Channel, since 2015.

Avocations: Hiking, Biking, Yoga, Vegetarian Cooking, Progressive Politics

College: Branford

Lucky in love and work, I’ve made time to play and give back. Happily, Yale provided introductions to abiding interests, experience in deep dives, tools for discovery and research.

Some Yale lessons: Jocks can be smart. (Thanks, Frank Shorter!) There is joy in the physical body, sports, and exercise. (Thanks, Don Tonry!) Art, music, and literature are worth pursuing always. (Thanks, Yale humanities faculty!) The history of art and architecture is the story of what it means to be human and live in a culture. (Thanks, Vincent Scully!) A close reading is worth the time and effort. (Thanks, New Criticism!) Ask lots of questions. (Thanks, Yale!)

My media career sprang from a job in a start-up company that pioneered pay and on-demand programming for the hospitality industry. With each new merger, acquisition, or new company, my roles changed and expanded from operations to corporate management to my great love, programming content acquisition. Yes, I got paid to watch as many movies as possible and negotiate their worth in, yes, largely economic, but also artistic, terms. (Thanks, Yale Film Society!)

In a fascinating three-year stint in Mexico in the early ’90s I founded and built a branch that could run on its own. (I loved working in Spanish, so why did I study German at Yale?) Serving luxury hotels meant customer visits to the best places, not only in the US, but also the Caribbean, Asia, South America, and Europe, even Canada.

Through it all there was support at home. I didn’t come out as gay to the class of ’69, or even to myself until my sophomore year. Raised a Southern Baptist, beset with guilt and shame about my sexuality, I was fearful of rejection. I was out mostly to other gay Yalies, living a secret life, unsure about what to do after Yale. So I dropped out in the middle of my senior year. With family support, I began psychotherapy, not for a cure, but to adjust. Therapy helped a great deal, and I returned to Yale in ’71 ready to finish my degree and live as an out gay man. Back in Atlanta I worked hard and played hard.

Then I met Judson. We saw each other every day for the next two months, until he agreed to move in. That was September 1978, and we’ve been together ever since. Judson made three major relocations for me: Miami, San Jose, Denver. In 2014, following federal recognition of gay marriage but before the sweeping Supreme Court decision, we married in Santa Fe. Doubly lucky in love, finding each other when we did doubtless saved us from the AIDS epidemic, which devastated our generation. (Thanks, Jud for everything!)

We plan to stay in Denver, where I’m semiretired and work for a start-up cable net. For play, we’ve been runners, sailors, bikers, hikers, and yogis. For 10 years now I have worked for equality for all and the general welfare through the Democratic Party of Denver. (Thanks, Yale Political Union!)