Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
AMY SCHERZERAlthough Sue Paulk came out at age 16, it would be years before she learned her crush was also gay. Love soon followed.
TAMPA - For 15 years, Sue Paulk buried her feelings for Kim Smith. She didn't know if they would be reciprocated, and feared rejection.
Back then, she said, growing up gay in West Tampa was "kinda taboo."
"I never told anyone I had a crush on her," Paulk said. She didn't want any more hurt in her life.
On Aug. 7, nearly two decades later, Paulk, 31, got to tell Smith, 30, all the things she never could say when they were teenagers. The two exchanged vows in a commitment ceremony at a friend's house in Carrollwood.
"We will overcome all forms of adversity, make all of our dreams realities and our love will grow," Paulk promised Smith in front of 35 friends and family members.
The women never considered going to Toronto or Massachusetts where same-sex marriages are legal.
"No reason to," Smith said. "A piece of paper doesn't change the dynamics of our relationship."
The Tampa natives knew each other from Pierce Junior High School. They passed each other in the halls, at band practice and birthday parties.
Smith went to Leto High, class of 1992, and trained to be an optician at Hillsborough Community College. Paulk graduated from Jefferson High the same year and moved to Sarasota to attend Manatee Community College on a basketball scholarship.
They might not have met again, if not for Smith's older sisters, Tammy and Terry Smith, who are also gay. Paulk, who came out at age 16, played softball with the sisters and socialized with their network of gay women. A fourth sister, Debby Harville, married at 18 and has three children.
"I was always asking Kim's sisters about her," Paulk said. "They noticed how much I seemed to care about her, but they never told her."
Paulk believes homosexuality is genetic and not a choice to be made randomly.
"It's very hard, very scary," she said. "No one would choose to be made fun of." A shy and introverted teenager, Paulk said children used to tease her about her resemblance to teen actor Corey Haim.
Paulk, who was raised by a single mother, quit community college about six credits short of a diploma in the spring of 1997. She was working for Coca-Cola as a bulk account manager when she ran into Smith at the Castle in Ybor City. She was stunned to learn Smith had come out as a lesbian.
After ending a three-year relationship with a man, Smith had moved to Gainesville to run the optical department at Sam's Club. When her father, Bobby Smith, died in June 1997, she moved back to Tampa, rented an apartment in Hyde Park and began to date women.
"Coming home, coming out ... was the right decision to actually be the person I am," she said. "I fall in love with people, not boys or girls, but people."
Four years after they bumped into each other in Ybor, one day in September 2001, Paulk drove to Sam's Club in South Tampa. She knew from Smith's sisters that she had become manager of the optical department. Paulk hoped Smith would be working.
She got a royal reception. Smith was thrilled to see her.
After the surprise visit, the two called, e-mailed and visited frequently. Four months later, on New Year's Eve, they admitted their love for each other.
Their bubble nearly burst when Paulk was laid off a week later from her job as a tower technician for Goff Communications in Sarasota.
Smith made the next move: She and her mother invited Paulk to live with them.
"She'd been hanging around my sisters for 15 years, so she was already like part of the family," Smith said.
Encouraged by Smith, an unemployed Paulk went back to school. Today, she's studying computer electronics and engineering at Remington College while working full time for Lakeland-based MCIS communications company.
On Feb. 15, Paulk made plans to pick Smith up at her current job, Costco in Clearwater. She wanted to make the relationship as official as it could be.
It was chilly, so she packed sweaters. Their dogs, Spencer and Merlin, climbed in the back of the truck. They were headed to a secluded beach they favor in Longboat Key.
"I had it all planned in my mind," Paulk said. "I already asked her mother and sisters, and now I just had to ask her."
An hour later, her romantic notions stalled when the truck sputtered and died.
Several people stopped to tinker with the engine to no avail. The sting of red tide kept them confined in the truck while they waited two hours for AAA to show up.
It was dark by the time they arrived at their spot. Getting down on one knee, Paulk saved the evening. "Everything went wrong today," she told Smith, "and still we didn't fight.
"Imagine what we can accomplish in life together," she said, sliding a pear-shaped diamond onto Smith's finger.
To pass along tips to Amy Scherzer, reach her at 226-3332 or scherzer@sptimes.com