Press Conference
In the first ever planned disclosure in the United States of an American school student with AIDS, Nicols, with the help of then Cooperstown School Superintendent Douglas Bradshaw, made plans to reveal his illness to the Cooperstown community. On March 8, 1991, Nicols went public at a press conference. Surrounded by other Boy Scouts, he discussed his condition and declared that he would use his illness as a leadership project to earn the coveted Eagle Scout award from the Boy Scouts of America. In a 1996 interview with POZ magazine, Nicols stated that, "Most of the courage came from anger, because I was so tired of having to keep this secret." He and his family expected that people would quickly become tired of his story, and were surprised by the immediate response. After Nicols went public with his story, his family received twenty-six messages on their answering machine, most of them offering encouragement.
Read more about this topic: Henry Nicols
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