Reflecting on the legacy of an icon: Katie Meyer

Katie Meyer, a Covington community leader, professional and activist, died last Thursday after a two-year battle with colorectal cancer.

Outpourings of sympathy from the broader community followed, and for good reason: If you live in Covington, Katie left an indelible impact on your life in the city, even if your paths never crossed.

“She’s just changed all of us for the better, certainly me, as well,” said Dr. Bonnie Meyer, Katie’s wife and co-founder of the NKY Pride Center.

Katie’s work as a community leader served as a template for the shape of the city today, especially downtown. Her fingerprints are everywhere—from the revitalization of Madison Avenue and Pike Street to the city’s free Wi-Fi system (which she piloted in the city’s Central Business District) to the Covington Farmers Market to the Pride Center to more we’d run out of room to mention.

“She was just so dedicated and just so passionate about Covington, about the downtown area and all of those things that she brought to it,” said Tom West, Covington’s Economic Development Director.

West did subcontracting work with Katie when she was the executive director of Renaissance Covington. Renaissance Covington was a local version of the Kentucky Main Street program, which aims to help communities revitalize and reinvest in downtown areas that have experienced economic downturns. It’s modeled after a national program called Main Street America, based out of Chicago. Katie was executive director of Renaissance Covington from 2010 to 2019. The organization began as an initiative within City Hall but later spun off into its own independent nonprofit.

Renaissance had been around prior to Katie’s tenure, but Jim Guthrie, architect and former board president of Renaissance, said Katie represented a shift in how the organization functioned. In time, the shift would be felt throughout the community.

“At the time, everybody was kind of down on Covington,” said Guthrie.

Many of the landmarks on Madison Avenue and Pike Streets today, including most of the restaurants, Hotel Covington and the Duveneck Square Apartments, weren’t there at the time. Additionally, the city had a lot of vacant storefronts. But Katie, Guthrie said, found ways to generate “excitement about the city.”

Unused parking spots throughout the city were refurbished into areas for outdoor activities and games. Night markets were held throughout the year. The area where Duveneck Square apartments now stand, which used to be a parking lot, was converted into a performance and gathering space when it wasn’t being used for parking. The area was dubbed “the mad lot.”

“We had movie nights there,” Guthrie said. “We had performances. I think we had Shakespeare there once.”

To deal with the storefronts, Renaissance held a symposium inviting development professionals from around the country to consult with community leaders about how to bring temporary pop-up shops to the empty buildings. After that, Renaissance would invite a local business to set up shop in a storefront between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“That became proof of concept for other permanent retailers to come in and develop those spaces,” Guthrie said.

The most well-known event from her time at Renaissance was hands-down the Running of the Goats in 2016. The event coincided with the seasonal opening of the Covington Farmer’s Market. The idea was to march the goats from 3rd Street, where the Farmer’s Market was, to their home in Goebel Park. Think the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain (but, you know, less dangerous).

The goats had other ideas. They made a break for it, and people had to scramble over the course of the next 24 hours to get the goats back under control. The incident made international headlines.

“I told her that was a ridiculous idea,” Bonnie said. “You think you are going to get baby goats, and you’re going to take a bunch of city folks – no offense to city folks – but if you haven’t grown up around goats, they can be jerks.”

Stressful as the event was, it later became part of the city’s identity. A goat stands on top of the city’s Authenti-CITY Award trophy, and Renaissance held (less stressful) Runnings of the Goats in subsequent years.

Renaissance was honored with a Great American Main Street Award in 2017. Although the whole organization was honored, said Covington Vice Mayor and attorney Shannon Smith, who provided legal services for Renaissance at one point, “it was Katie who did the work every single day.”

Katie first got involved with LGBTQ+ organizing when she was in college. She had first connected with her soon-to-be wife Bonnie online in 2011 while Bonnie was a doctoral student at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The same year, Bonnie had come down to Covington for an organizing event.

“Katie and I saw each other, and truly it was love at first sight,” Bonnie said.

Later that night, after Bonnie had made it back to Oxford, she got a text from Katie: “You’re unreasonably beautiful.”

“That was it,” Bonnie said. She moved to Covington before the end of the year.

Bonnie and Katie got married on Sept. 2, 2012, at the Ladies Pavilion in Central Park. New York legalized gay marriage in 2011; gay marriage wasn’t legalized nationally until 2015.

The two opened a bar together in March 2012 called Pike Street Lounge. Katie’s brother, Chris Meyer, contributed a sculpture for the interior. Bonnie said they wanted it to be a place “to celebrate the queer community,” as well as local culture generally: “local art, local music, local beer.”

Both were working at the time, however, and managing a bar on top of their other jobs proved difficult to manage. As a result, the lounge only operated for about two years.

The Northern Kentucky Pride Center has been out of its current building since 2020, although Pride events had been going on for years prior. Katie’s role was largely behind the scenes, keeping the organization’s machinery running smoothly.

“She was our 501(c)3 expert,” Bonnie said. “She was the one that was going to keep us on task in meetings. She was always thinking ahead about all of the things that we didn’t even know we probably needed to have done two weeks ago.”

During her time at the Pride Center, Katie helped in the creation of the NKY Pride Awards, the coordination of PrideFest, as well as organizing the annual Pride Parade.

“She really just had this gift to just make people feel not just that you belong here but… this is going to be what you do and (what) you’re going to empower,” said Drew Boehmker, the Pride Center’s communications director. “She just had such a remarkable talent for that.”

Katie resigned from Renaissance Covington in 2019 to take a job with Cincinnati Bell (now altafiber), where she led the UniCity initiative, which worked to expand internet access in communities in Ohio and Northern Kentucky.

In 2023, she became the CEO of Downtown Dayton Partnership, an organization similar to Renaissance Covington, in Dayton, Ohio, where she was instrumental in preparing the city for the 2025 spring NATO Parliamentary Assembly. The assembly marked 30 years since the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the Bosnian War.

Although her illness and death were somewhat sudden, her legacy can be felt throughout the community.

“Very seldom do we get to be around people that have contributed so much to our society like Katie has,” said Covington Mayor Ron Washington.

“Without Bonnie and Katie, I very well probably would not be here in Northern Kentucky anymore,” Boehmker said.

“She was such an inspiration,” said West.

“She loved her life,” Bonnie said. “She told me that all the time. She told me that just days before she died; she told me, ‘I love my life…’ She really embodied that, I think, for all of us.”

A community fundraiser for the Meyer family featuring drag performances from local performers will take place on Thursday, April 30, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Juniper’s on West 6th Street. You can learn more about the event here.

There will also be a community celebration of Katie’s life at Hotel Covington on Sunday, May 3, from 5-8 p.m. In lieu of flowers, her family asks you to donate to the Northern Kentucky Pride Center. You can donate here.

Click here to read Katie‘s full obituary, and check out some photos of her life provided by Bonnie below.