Conrad native makes history in Key West

Teri Johnston, a 1969 graduate of Beaman-Conrad High School, made headlines over 1,700 miles away last week when she was elected as the first openly gay mayor of Key West, the famed tourist destination and the southernmost incorporated community in the continental United States—and more broadly, as the first openly gay leader of any major city in Florida.
           
The 67-year-old former all-American softball player and Women’s College World Series champion at John F. Kennedy College in Nebraska emerged out of an initial field of 13 candidates and won 66 percent of the vote in her nonpartisan general election against Margaret Romero. Previously, Johnston had served as a city commissioner for eight years.
 
The mayor-elect, who moved to Key West (population 26,990) with her partner Dar in 2000 from the Chicago suburbs and runs a construction business, got into politics in one of the most Floridian ways possible: driving all the way to Tallahassee with a citizens organization to protest a hike in insurance rates on property owners who were hit hard by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. In the end, the state legislature reduced the rates by 34 percent and froze them for four years, saving residents almost $500 million.
 
“I thought (that) if you can have that much impact with a small group of people with a cause, there are certainly other things worth fighting for,” Johnston said. 
 
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