Miami Herald - May 8, 2009
Steve Rothaus, srothaus@MiamiHerald.com

Through the years, Cole donated thousands of dollars to YES Institute, which works to prevent gay-teen suicide, and other gay nonprofits.

"It's an immeasurable loss to the whole community," said Martha Fugate, founding director of YES Institute in South Miami. "What a great guy."

Cole came out to his family after he graduated in 1960 from Miami Beach High. He returned to South Florida after earning a political science degree at University of Florida.

In 1965, he met stockbroker Dick Pollock.

"I was 22, he was 30. That was it. I moved in my first night, with my Air Force Reserve uniform," Cole told The Miami Herald in 2006, when he was honored with a humanitarian award by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

For 25 years, Cole and Pollock had a large home on South Miami Avenue and were part of Miami's underground gay social scene. "We were closeted then," Cole recalled. "If we went out to dinner in a restaurant, we never went with more than two other men. It looked funny. People would say, 'Where are the girls?' "

In 1977, singer Anita Bryant launched her Save Our Children to repeal Miami-Dade County's gay-rights ordinance.

"It was a terrible period, especially then. You just kept it hidden. Afraid of exposure," Cole said in 2006. "We gave up. Nothing happened again until HIV came and we started organizations like Health Crisis Network."

Cole, Pollack and many of their friends came out of the closet and held early fundraisers for HCN, the precursor to Care Resource, now South Florida's largest AIDS service agency.

In 1989, Cole took a routine HIV test and the result came back positive.

"I got hysterical. I expected it. I don't know why. I was an absolute mess. I thought it would take over my life," Cole told The Herald.

It did not. Cole and Pollock continued fundraising for HCN and other charities, and they remained active on the social scene as one of South Florida's first visible gay couples.

They were living in Grove Isle when Pollock, 61, died in 1997 of pancreatic cancer. Alone for the first time, Cole felt challenged to make it on his own.

"Bob was trying to spread his wings," said longtime friend Robert Oldakowski.

Cole, a travel agent, moved to Sunset Harbor in South Beach and attempted to keep up with fundraising. He volunteered with the Miami-Dade gay rights group SAVE Dade, mostly booked gay cruises and was an active member of the Miami-Dade Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

"He was the most underestimated leader of our community that we had in the last 20 years," said Miami attorney Greg Baldwin, a one-time gay activist who knew Cole for 25 years. "He did everything very quietly. There was no sense of self-importance or even ego. Never seeking the limelight or even wanting the limelight."

Added another good friend, Realtor Jose Luis Pere: "One of the qualities about Bob Cole was that he never said anything bad about anyone. It wasn't his nature."

When Cole's health declined and money wasn't as plentiful, he sold his Beach condo and returned to Grove Isle in Miami.

"A lot of people vanished when the spending wasn't there," said Salvatore Castillo, a close friend. "But at the end he was at peace with that. He was satisfied with what he had done."

In addition to his friends, Cole is survived by niece Stefanie Cole Viola and nephew Steven Cole; stepsister Carol Bear; and cousin Elaine Lazarus Doran. A memorial service will be held 11 a.m. Saturday at Cole's Grove Isle apartment.
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