2025 Pride Board Nominees: Community Liaison

Adam McElhaney

Adam McElhaney is one of two candidates running for Community Liaison for Tennessee Valley Pride. While relatively new to the scene, Adam hails from Georgia and has been proud to call Chattanooga home for several years. After moving here to attend UTC, Adam fell in love with the city’s charm and the sense of community it offers. While my interview with Adam was short, I was able to get a delightful picture of who he is. 

Adam shared that he holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering that he got at UTC and currently works as a software engineer. Adam states that his career “has provided me with valuable experience in problem-solving, innovation, and collaboration” which he plans to bring to this position. Adam isn’t new to non-profit work. He previously served on the board for Chattanooga Cares (now Cempa) which gave him valuable experience working with the LGBTQ community in a non-profit capacity. He says that his connection with this community is “deeply personal, rooted in friendships and a commitment to inclusivity.”  

When he isn’t working, Adam enjoys “exploring Chattanooga’s beautiful hiking trails, spending time at local dog parks, and discovering the city’s best sushi spots.” He loves to relax hiking with his dog and exploring nature. He additionally spends time as an actor and model, demonstrated best on his Instagram which is full of commercial spots and little cameos on various television shows. He loves mint chocolate chip ice cream and is described by friends as “funny, driven and creative.” 

Adam says that he is passionate about contributing to the community and bringing his skills to the table to help guide and support Tennessee Valley Pride’s growth. For him, advocacy is about amplifying voices and fostering meaningful progress. He says “it’s an essential way to ensure that everyone feels seen, heard, and valued.” Adam shared with me that he is most passionate about elevating our Pride event as “it's the cornerstone of how our community is represented.” He mentioned his vision which is to make Pride a premier event that celebrates diversity but also draws allies and support from across the region.

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Danielle Quesenberry

Danielle Quesenberry is one of two candidates running for the Community Liaison position with Tennessee Valley Pride. In the interest of understanding her as a person, I sat down with Danielle to talk about how she grew up, who she is as a person, and why she wants to represent the community on the TVP board this year. Fresh faced and newly cut hair, Danielle’s authenticity comes through in every movement albeit well considered and controlled. Over coffee at Sleepyheads we have connected about many things and I’m delighted to share about this amazing human. At face value, Danielle is a lesbian woman from the south. She loves moose tracks ice cream and loves to unwind with jogging, yoga, or reading. She describes herself as “a huge fiction nerd.” While all of these things are absolutely true, it’s her closest friends that will describe her as fiercely loyal, intuitive, and guided by immense empathy. 

Danielle grew up in a small town in Georgia called Milledgeville. She describes how life has moved her around but she eventually settled in Chattanooga happy to find the mountains and the river both nearby. She describes her favorite memory from childhood being on a cold spring morning when she and her horse, Sunny Boy, went exploring in the woods with apples and PB&J. I’m not sure what could be more southern and grounded than this story. But that was only the beginning. When she came to Chattanooga,  “I was struggling to find community,” Danielle says, but through her love for nature, she began finding community and she says “Chatt kinda chose me.” Despite some difficulties as we all have faced the pandemic, the political climate of the south changing, and much more, Danielle has put down roots and built relationships, choosing Chattanooga as home. 

During the day, Danielle is an advocate for the arts, for the community, and for minorities to have space spaces to hold conversations. The first time I met Danielle was hosting one of these such conversations at Seed Theatre. Her work with United Way and with Georgia Equality taught her many skills she brought that weekend, including organizing and planning events, webinars and info sessions. Danielle led difficult conversations between members of the LGBTQ community and people of faith among others as we discussed drag and performing arts as laws were changing. Fostering space is an excellent way to describe the magic Danielle brought that weekend to our little theatre. And it was only the beginning. Since that time, Danielle has launched Out Here, a newsletter created to tell queer stories to people all over the country. She works with artists daily, giving them space to create and exist, and she mirrors this work in many other capacities. 

When I asked Danielle about advocacy, she described what really defined advocacy for her. She describes it as “interacting with the systems in place to address systemic inequity. At (Georgia Equality), I learned to organize, plan events, webinars, and info sessions on how to disrupt the status quo, how to secure funding for needed services and programming, how to show up, day in and day out, even when you felt it was an uphill battle.” What was most impactful to me as she described advocacy to me was her follow up comment that “Advocacy is acknowledging and utilizing your privilege. Advocacy is showing up. Advocacy is also understanding where you fit within the movement.” For me, also a cisgender white woman, I connected and related to this idea of using privilege as advocacy and her words encapsulated this concept perfectly. 

Wrapping up, I wanted to ask Danielle more about what she wanted to see for the Chattanooga LGBTQ community - after all, that’s the point of running for a position like this. Danielle is very passionate about integration and community between organizations working in queer spaces. She commented that she would “also like queer owned businesses to integrate more fully into local and civic organizations.” She continued “I’d like us to acknowledge that we are stronger together as we continue to work as a community to ensure that each LGBTQ+ person can not only survive, but thrive in the Tennessee Valley Area. I believe by forming strong community partnerships and increasing engagement, as well as continued internal community building and unity we will continue to move forward, gaining momentum on the immense work of the previous board members.”