By Claudia Levy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 28, 2003; Page B04

Bruce Pennington, 56, a chef, teacher and former radio broadcaster who was honored in June at Washington's annual gay pride celebration as a "Capital Pride Hero" for 35 years of activism in the city, died Aug. 26 at the Hospice of Washington. He had AIDS and had suffered a stroke.

Mr. Pennington, an early member of the Gay Liberation Front in Washington, was a host of the "Friends" radio program from 1973 to 1982. The program, one of the first aimed at a gay audience, was launched on the Georgetown University radio station, WGTB-FM, and picked up later by Pacifica Radio, WPFW-FM.

"Friends" was begun by the Stonewall Nation Media Collective five years after demonstrations in New York launched a national gay pride movement. The Rainbow History Project describes it as one of the nation's longest-running radio programs for a bisexual, homosexual and transgender audience.

The program chronicled the emerging gay community in Washington "as it established community institutions, sought civil rights and dealt with issues of racism, gender, health and the arts," the history project noted.

In an interview with the Washington Blade, Mark Meinke, the history project's chairman, said "Friends" was an important link in those pre-liberation days. He said a letter sent to the program's producers by a Montgomery County youth described the times:

"If you felt you were the only person in the world like yourself, if you had no way of meeting other gays or lesbians and you were stuck in the boonies, if you listened to 'Friends' radio, you realized you weren't alone," Meinke recalled the listener as writing. "It made you feel more normal, less alone and less like a pervert."

Mr. Pennington was a founder of the Stonewall Nation Media Collective and vice president of the Rainbow History Project. He helped begin Black & White Men Together, an organization of interracial gay couples.

He was a native of North Dakota and a cum laude English graduate of the University of the District of Columbia. He worked in the late 1960s in Washington and New York for Liberation News Service. In the early 1970s, he was employed by TransCentury Corp., counseling returning Peace Corps volunteers about changes in society.

Mr. Pennington cooked at such Washington restaurants as Herb's, Jaleo, Restaurant George, Capital Grill and Sfuzzi and at the University Club of Washington. In 2000, he became an English teacher at the Marriott Charter School, which trains youths for careers in the hospitality industry. He retired in April.

Mr. Pennington became one of Washington's first officially sanctioned gay foster parents in the 1970s, when he was licensed by a D.C. youth aid group, Special Approaches to Juvenile Assistance. He provided a home for a gay teenager who had run away from home and his disapproving parents. When the youth's parents sued in Montgomery County Juvenile Court to regain custody, a judge rejected their claim and ruled in Mr. Pennington's favor.

Mr. Pennington was active in the singles ministry of Metropolitan Community Church and was church representative to the Downtown Cluster of Congregations.

Survivors include his mother, Louise Pennington of Arizona; and a brother.