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Ron Sanford - business owner, community organizer, and gay rights advocate - was born and raised in Nashville, but his life and work have left legacies all throughout the South. In particular, Ron's efforts to make space for LGBTQ+ individuals in the region have been made concrete through the numerous gay bars he has helped own and operate, in many cases serving as venues for drag pageants. In the foreword for James Sears' "Growing Up Gay in the South: Race, Gender, and Journeys of Spirit," Virginia Uribe wrote that, in the South, the stories of the LGBTQ+ are at their core "stories of courage and triumph in the face of defeat" (Sears 1991, xii). Vanderbilt Special Collections, largely under the initiative of Sarah Calise, has made a broad effort to make those stories visible and available for the public and scholars alike. The Ron Sanford Papers, a collection of items related to Sanford's life and career, form one pillar of this archival project. This collection, drawing on those papers, highlights the objects that defined LGBTQ+ celebration in the mid-south during the twentieth century and the material aspects of a pageantry tradition which Sanford himself was active in organizing throughout his career.