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MIKE HENTZ/The Citizen
The late City Commissioner Jeremy Anthony's name is among 61 newly inscribed on the AIDS Memorial. The name of Todd J. Peerman, who was an activist for people living with AIDS, is in lower right corner of the picture.

KEY WEST -- Former City Commissioner Jeremy Anthony was outspoken, passionate and visible throughout the town he loved. Todd Peerman, a longtime AIDS activist and advocate for the rights of people living with AIDS, also was a familiar face with a recognizable voice that pointed out injustice at deafening volumes.

Both men are now silent, their names and legacies being added to the permanency of granite at the Key West AIDS Memorial. They join more than 1,000 other names that represent people also silenced by a four-letter acronym that became deadly in the 1980s and exacted a tremendous toll from this island city.

Key West will join communities all over the world on Monday in recognizing World AIDS Day, and pausing for a few moments during the harried holiday season to remember those no longer on Christmas card lists.

Sixty-one names have been added this year to the memorial at the foot of White Street, and all 1,075 names will be read aloud and remembered during a brief ceremony at the memorial Monday night.

MIKE HENTZ/The Citizen
The AIDS Memorial is the entryway to a popular fishing, walking and bicycling spot, the White Street Pier. Members of the community will gather there Monday for a World AIDS Day ceremony.
The ceremony will celebrate this year's local theme, "Inspiring Memories -- Transforming Lives," and will include musical selections, prayers, speakers and the reading of the names, said Michael Epting, one of the event coordinators.

"It means something very special to us," said Brooks White, president of Friends of the Key West AIDS Memorial, and one of the people who made the memorial a reality in 1997. "It's a tribute to the people who have died of AIDS and have shown a love of the Florida Keys by living, working or visiting here."

White accepts nominations of names for the memorial from family members and friends of the deceased and also through word of mouth when someone with ties to the Keys dies.

The memorial was created in 1997 with 720 names. Additional names have been added every year since, but the number being added each year does not correspond with the actual number of AIDS-related deaths in the Keys, White emphasized.

"Memorials really are for the living, not the dead, so nearly all nominations are accepted and become part of the memorial," White said.

mbolen@keysnews.com

Names being added:

Jeremy Anthony, Robert Berretta, Arthur Bates, Jimmy Berlin, Franklin Lamar Blanton, Bill Borroughs, Reverend Walter D. Collins, Bruce P. Cotten, Jr., John Crossan, Raymond daRocha, Leonard DeBuck, Humberto Dionisio, Conrad Dube, Jean-Paul Ferrerman, Nicky Glauda, Steven Glencross, J.T. Gutierrez, Scott Hamm, Dean Marshall Hansen, Humberto Hurrera, Patti Lord, Tom Machoti, Christopher Manship, Mike Mantas, James Mottley, Bert O'Neal, Mario Otero, Todd J. Peerman, Stephen Gray Perine, Martin John Powers, Daniel Puerto, Jose Quintanilla, Charlie Rich, Jorge Rivera-Lopez, Robert M. Saari, Manolo Saura, Rollie Severson, Derrick Sheridan, Eugene Smoot, Marc Somberg, Mark Sommers, Charles Stincer, Jim Swisher, Deane Tatje, Kenneth Tidwell, Berry Tracy, Ronald C. Tyner, Joseph D. Ursitti, Sergio L. Velasquez, Jean-Luc Vercammen, Frank Wager, Tim Ward, Jackson Lee Watts III, William C. Weaver, Curtis Weikel, Mark West, Anne Whalen, Marilyn Whalen, Thomas M. Whalen, John Williams, Blaine Zinnendorf.