POWERGRAMS

22 "I'm 'out' to everybody," she says. "Everybody knows. I don't have qualms about saying 'My wife.' Nobody even winces anymore, because they know it's just me, and I'm Krista, and that's what I want. I'm just another employee. Not a gay employee." Presnall says she may have been a bit too strong- willed when she arrived on the job at Alabama Power, butting up against some employees who had never had a similar co-worker. In a competitive world, she wanted to prove she was as good on the job as any employee, while not having to deal with snide remarks, glances or being ignored. She soon decided the best strategy was proving her mettle, which eventually won the day. The company now requires all employees to complete inclusive culture training to increase awareness and help identify unconscious biases. Along the way, she stepped in a hole on a dog rescue mission, rupturing her Achilles tendon, then the day before she was to return to work, she tore it again, only worse, requiring reconstructive surgery. Presnall was out of work for nearly a year, during which time she took online classes to complete her bachelor's degree from UA. During rehab, she vowed to walk across the stage in Tuscaloosa to get her diploma, which she accomplished before returning to Barry. "Not only did Alabama Power put up with me for 11 months, they paid for me to go back to school, so I graduated from the University of Alabama in 2013 while being laid up in bed," she says. Presnall still bleeds crimson. Had she been born a boy, "I'da played football for them instead of piccolo in the band." Her aunt played a flute that, because of economic pressures, was handed down to Presnall, who would have preferred a musical instrument "not quite so effeminate," perhaps drums or saxophone. Those are among the simple adaptations she's made in a life of straight society demands. Nancy Henken-Presnall was married to a man for 25 years. "That was how she had to conform in the world then," Krista says of her spouse, who has a 31-year-old gay son, Stephen. She says Nancy's ex- husband and both their families love and respect each other. Krista remembers having rocks thrown at her after entering a bar in the 1980s. Children sometimes make comments in Walmart today. Adults give her odd looks when she walks into a women's restroom. Men behind the counter at sporting goods stores sometimes ignore her. Presnall says there have been days when she's had to hide the real Krista from the world around her. "Oh, absolutely!" she says. "There was a time when we didn't hold hands, we didn't act like we were together. Even when I was younger, you just didn't do stuff out in public because you were afraid of what was going to happen to you. Still today, there are times and places we just don't go because that's just not where we're supposed to be." But times change and Presnall has taken an advanced approach that would please President George H.W. Bush: kinder and gentler. She's more interested in education than confrontation. She thinks other employees might follow the lead of the dogs she rescues, that aren't concerned about who is doing the rescuing. "I just mostly want people to see that we're just people. We just want to come to work and go home just like everybody else," she says. "I do my best at work just being Krista, not 'Gay Krista'. There are gay women coming up that I want to be managers and not have to fight the fight I've had. "A lot of us older LBGTQ just want to be the calm in the chaos," she says. "We just want to make it a better place to work, play and live, and I think Alabama Power is a perfect, wonderful company platform to use in the state of Alabama." Presnall needed reconstructive surgery to her left leg. Nancy and Krista cut their wedding cake.

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