The 100th pledge member of the City of Huntington’s Open to All campaign was officially inducted on Wednesday, Feb. 6.

Dallas, Texas transplants Patrick “Dr. Skip” Hart and husband/business manager J. Forsyth (alongside their dog “Nurse” Louis) took the pledge at the CoWorks facility where they base their functional medicine practice.

Justin Murdock, co-chair of the Mayor’s LGBT Advisory Committee, helped officiate the ceremony by giving some opening remarks about the campaign.

“This started way back in 2015 to show support for everyone in the community, basically in opposition to some political rattling going on in the House that was going to make it legal to discriminate against folks if you owned a business,” Murdock said. “We thought ‘Huntington doesn’t want that. Huntington doesn’t need that. What would be really cool, was if there was a way we could show that Huntington doesn’t want or need that.’”

Thus, the Open to All logo began making an appearance on the front doors of local businesses, medical centers and even on Marshall University’s campus.

Part of the reason husbands and business partners Hart and Forsyth made the move to Huntington was because of the Open to All campaign, Hart said.

“Being in Dallas for a decade, we were excited to pick where we wanted to go next,” Hart said. “It was around August that we decided to go visit Huntington, and it was immediately amazing. That was when we met people at CoWorks, that’s when we started to walk down the streets and see the ‘Open to All’ signs.”

Mayor Steve Williams spoke about the strides the mayor’s office and its initiatives, including Open to All, have taken to make Huntington a more inclusive community.

“Huntington won one of three diversity awards offered by the National League of Cities,” Williams said. “The award we received was because of the Open to All campaign.”

Williams said that with the Open to All campaign, the Mayor’s office, the Huntington Regional Chamber of Commerce and all those that have taken the pledge vow to maintain a welcoming and safe environment for all employees, visitors and clients.

Trey Delida can be contacted at [email protected].