November 24, 2025 | Michail Takach

Debbie McCarty: creating a sanctuary in the shadows

Defying the homophobic hostility of her hometown, she created a legacy of courage that long outlasted her critics.

Debbie McCarty

“In the end, our freedom was more expensive than I thought.”

For a young woman in the 1980s, north central Wisconsin felt vastly different than it does today. Secrecy was not a choice; it was a necessary shield. Yet, in the heart of Wausau, a handful of small, downtown bars offered a rare flicker of light. It was in this environment that Debbie McCarty would defy convention, claim her identity, and ultimately become a pioneer, carving out a vital, temporary refuge that drew LGBTQ people from hundreds of miles away.

McCarty’s journey began with an act of defiance. Growing up, she always knew she was different but didn’t know what her feelings meant. When she turned eighteen, she decided to go out and celebrate. Her brother, Wayne, who lived in Wausau, had given her a clear, stern warning: “Whatever you do, don’t go to The Lark or The Pit.”

“So, on my 18th birthday, that was exactly what I did,” McCarty recalls. “The first bar I ever went to was The Pit.”

The Lark (131 Scott Street) in later years

The Lark was long known as a "county western" venue (1971.)

Inside The Lark

That single, bold decision changed the course of her life. That night, she met Vicky Hasko, owner of The Pit. Vicky, recognizing a kindred spirit, introduced Debbie to her circle of friends.

“We did a shot of Bacardi 151 rum,” remembered Debbie. “I felt so brave! The shot was on fire, I almost burnt my lip, and if I had any mustache, it would have been gone!”

A few days later, Debbie was back in Rhinelander, hosting a birthday party of her own. She invited Vicky and her friends to come up. The night ended with a casual offer of a ride home that turned into an impromptu abduction.

“They said they’d take me home when they were done with me, but they kidnapped me and took me to Wausau,” she laughed, thinking about how wild that night was.

She spent two weeks living with her new friends, who “took very good care of me.” They bought her clothes, underwear, food, and drinks. This spontaneous, immediate connection -- forged in the hidden corners of a basement bar -- was proof that a hunger for community was growing in the region.

But the reality of being openly gay in Central Wisconsin was immediate and harsh. After settling in Wausau, McCarty got her first job, washing dishes at a local restaurant. It lasted only as long as it took for someone to out her.

“They found out I was gay, and they fired me,” she said. “One of the customers told them, you know, she’s gay. And so yeah, that was it. I was 18 years old and unemployed.”

This early experience – from the exhilaration of finding her people to the frustration of social rejection -- defined the high-stakes realities of small-town gay life in the 1970s.

When she was 19, Debbie moved to Butler, Wisconsin, but not for long.

“My brother was the manager of Crown Books, which was the dirty bookstore in Wausau,” she laughed. “He got me this job as an order picker at the warehouse. They’d place their orders, and I’d fill up a shopping cart with their selections. Sure learned a lot working there!”

After he retired from the store, Debbie was transferred up north to Stevens Point.

A place for us

McCarty drifted for a time, pumping gas, moving to Stevens Point, trying to find her footing. Then, fate called. Around 1983, a friend, Kathy Kimball, contacted her with an urgent plea.

“Listen, a friend of mine bought this bar, and he has no clue what he’s doing. Can you help him?” Kimball asked.

McCarty immediately said, “Sure.” And that’s how she became involved with The Lark.

The Lark, located at 131 Scott Street, was a tavern long before Debbie’s arrival. Formerly known as The Surplus Store, the retail space was converted into Prieve’s Tap in 1956. Cecil Charbonneau bought the business in 1961 and opened The Lark as a family tavern. His son, Curtis, got involved in the early 1970s after returning from military service in Vietnam. The liquor license was in his name by 1973.

From 1973 to 1977, The Lark was consistently listed in national gay guides. Word was out, and perhaps the bar became too out, as Charbonneau changed its name to “Moonshine Corner” from 1974 to 1981.

“That’s funny because people still called it The Lark,” said Debbie, “even years after they stopped using that name.”

Curtis Charbonneau finally sold in 1981, first to Brenda Lee Jahnke and then James Zahn. According to city records, it was vacant for a short time before Bill Mathiesen reopened as The Lark in 1983.

And now, Debbie was continuing the tradition.

She started commuting back and forth between Stevens Point and Wausau daily. She restructured the bar operation, trained the staff, and poured her energy and expertise into turning around the business. It wasn't long before she realized it was working.

“It just got to the point where I was putting in so much time…. I finally said, you know what? I want part ownership.”

Since The Pit had closed in 1982, it was even more important than ever to Debbie that Wausau have a space for queer people than ever. The bar was long known as a place where “gay people hung out,” but under McCarty’s guidance, it transformed from a secret rendezvous point into a regional center for LGBTQ life. She had a singular vision that transcended mere business: to create a place where people could be themselves and where anyone felt comfortable.

The atmosphere was welcoming, and the clientele grew quickly, seeking an oasis from the isolation of their smaller, surrounding communities.

“A lot of gay people were coming to The Lark, and it gave me a bright idea,” laughed Debbie. “But looking back, maybe it wasn’t so bright.”

Creating a spectacular scene

Realizing the need to do something bold and different, Debbie launched a groundbreaking tradition: drag shows on Sundays.

“I closed the bar down and opened it just for drag shows,” she explains. “The Lark was the first place in Wausau to host drag shows. And it was just a blast!”

The spectacle was not limited to professional performers. McCarty herself joined in the fun.

“I actually dressed as a woman, you know, with makeup and stuff on,” she laughed. “Yeah, I was in drag too.”

These Sunday extravaganzas made the bar famous.

“We were packed, just absolutely packed,” said Debbie. “The shows had a really loyal following.”

The Lark became a hotspot for Northern Wisconsin’s queer community. Customers traveled significant distances—from Milwaukee, Rhinelander, Tomahawk, Marshfield, and Rice Lake —all drawn by the promise of community and celebration. Word of mouth, amplified by private parties held by friends like McCarty and her then-girlfriend, Katie, was the lifeblood of their success.

“We had parties, we had lots and lots and lots of parties,” she says, remembering how one friend would always bring another, expanding the circle. “Word of mouth was the biggest thing.”

McCarty ensured the bar was a place of pure entertainment throughout the week, setting the stage for the Sunday revelry. She hosted live bands, pig roasts, sports events, and even an early karaoke system.

“I had this beautiful system, and we would let people play the record, and then sing along, and a lot of people came out for that.”

The drag performers, mostly men, were legendary. She singles out Chris Slack (Vojkowski) as one of her biggest stars.

“He would come as a nun. He would come as a hooker. I mean, he just, these elaborate dresses and things that he’d come as was just astronomical.”

For a brief, shining period in the mid-1980s, The Lark was a haven of extravagant fun, a place where the rigid rules of society melted away, and where people could dance, sing, and express themselves freely.

“The Pendulum was a good neighbor to us,” said Debbie. “I’d go down and have a few beers there, and they’d come down here to hang with us. They were a little bit fancier than I was. When they started hosting drag shows, they felt more professional than ours. I mean, come on, our drag queens used our basement as their dressing room. You know what I’m saying?”

“It all felt so raw, and so urgent, and so necessary,” said Debbie. “Having a place for us here in our hometown meant so much.”

The scars of secrecy

But the freedom offered by The Lark came at a steep price, a constant reminder of the hostility outside the bar’s doors.

Debbie remembers the early days being safe and quiet. But, as word of the drag shows got out, the novelty wore off, and the backlash began. Many straight customers stopped coming to The Lark, neighboring businesses weren’t especially supportive, and the financial pressure mounted.

“My business just started to tank,” McCarty recalls. “I did good on Sundays, but Sundays just could not keep me going.”

More distressingly, the harassment escalated. McCarty herself endured frequent verbal abuse.

“People called me queer, they called me a dyke,” she recounts. While she personally learned to ignore it, she saw her gay male friends, employees and customers hit hard by homophobia.

“Straight men accepted lesbians, although it was usually through this sexualized lens,” said Debbie. “It was a little easier to be a lesbian woman than to be a gay man back then, especially if you could not or would not pass for straight in a mixed setting.”

“My bartenders were gay, and they would get picked on,” said Debbie.

Debbie at The Lark

Debbie at The Lark

Debbie at The Lark

“People would say, you know, faggot this and faggot that.” Gay men were subjected not only to verbal assaults and intimidation, but people would physically harass them. Debbie remembers people trying to trip men as they walked through the bar.

“It was really immature behavior,” she said, “and it really pissed me off. You better believe I spoke up.”

Debbie was also the victim of homophobic violence. She vividly recalls being attacked by three straight women who accused her of making a pass. (She didn’t.)

“They jumped me, held me down, and kicked me in the stomach,” said Debbie. “They fractured my ribs, and I had to recover at my father’s house, sleeping on the floor because I couldn’t sleep in a bed.”

Debbie was always very cautious about her customers safety. Since The Lark was located at a highly visible downtown intersection with a stoplight, the fear of being outed was real.

“There was a really big fear of being seen,” said Debbie. “Yeah, the Lark could be an escape from the outside world, but the outside world was still out there waiting for you. Yes, there were places we could go, but it wasn’t exactly a paradise.”

“We had a back door that led to the parking lot, so people could enter without being seen by traffic,” she says. “However, it was dark out there, and you never knew if someone was lurking in the shadows. I always warned people to be very, very careful.”

Debbie didn’t live on the premises, so closing the bar alone at night was sometimes a little spooky.

Customers developed clandestine methods to protect their safety, careers and reputations.

“There was a lot of sneaking in. They waited until all the cars passed before they would enter the bar. If cars were stopped at the intersection, they’d just keep on walking right past The Lark, and then double back when the coast was clear.’

“I had a lot of people tell me that over the years,” she said. “Isn’t it funny to think about now?”

“Looking back, the drag shows weren’t really the smartest thing I could have done, financially, even though it was very important to me personally,” said Debbie. “I wanted to create a place where everyone felt comfortable and everyone could be themselves. In the end, I guess that freedom was more expensive than I thought.”

The lights go out on Scott Street

Being a pioneer comes with a lot of risks and costs – and so does having a reputation as a queer space in the early 1980s. Debbie rebranded The Lark twice: first to “House of Whit” and later to “Primetime.” She hired a bar manager as the front face of the business and sought to become a silent partner in the bar.

None of it worked. Local customers just wouldn’t come back, and there wasn’t enough business from the LGBTQ community to keep the bar afloat. The Reagan Era was also a tough time to run a gay bar anywhere. Nationally, these spaces became much more mixed, diverse, and socially acceptable during the disco years, only to experience a major backlash during the earliest years of the AIDS crisis. Straight customers, fueled by fear and paranoia, no longer felt “safe” in gay bars and took their dollars elsewhere.

By 1986, the combination of declining weeknight business and escalating expenses were catching up to the bar. Though the Sunday shows were still a regional draw, weekday business was shrinking.

“There’d be nights we’d have 3, 4 people in there all night,” said Debbie. “It’s like, where did everyone go?”

A massive rent increase was the last nail in The Lark’s coffin.

“The landlord wanted to raise the rent to $1,700 a month,” she remembers. “That was an insane amount of money for any tavern space in the mid-80s. It was quite ridiculous. This wasn’t a nightclub, it was a bar, and there was no way in hell we could ever afford that. No one in Wausau could!”

McCarty was forced to close The Lark. Although this beacon of LGBTQ culture had been blown out, the community endured, evolved, and advanced. Other queer spaces, including Camp, Masquers, and Mad Hatters carried forward the legacy built by The Pit and The Lark.

However, McCarty’s pioneering spirit didn't end with the bar. She had already started a side hustle to offset The Lark's financial struggles: a painting company. This quickly grew into something much bigger. She launched B&D, which became the first female-owned and operated construction company in the state of Wisconsin.

She ran B&D for 36 years, at one point employing over 20 people. But even in the world of construction, her identity haunted her. Her business gained customers primarily through word of mouth, which was a double-edged sword. She often feared that the same word of mouth would be her “death,” ruining her reputation with conservative customers if her sexual orientation became widely known. People were often vindictive, twisting her company’s initials, B&D, into the slur, “Butch and Dyke.”

Despite the persistent threat of homophobia, McCarty survived and thrived, retiring at age 59 after decades of success. She had triumphed over the homophobia and sexism of her youth to achieve more than she ever imagined.

Far and away

Now in her late sixties, McCarty looks back at Wausau with a new sense of clarity. She reflects on how the city has transformed throughout her lifetime, and how The Lark helped to make that transformation possible.

“I’ve only lived outside the Wausau area for about three years out of the past 50,” said Debbie. “This is my hometown.”

“But Wausau has changed. People are becoming more accepting of us, you know?” she observes. She recalls the subtle, almost secret steps of progress: people now feel free to hold hands, put an arm around a partner in a restaurant, kiss each other on the cheek, even openly introduce their partners and spouses in mixed company.

“There was a time we were scared to show people who we were,” said Debbie. “You only did those things if you were really gutsy or really stupid. People would say you were asking for trouble, and all you were doing was showing some human affection. Even so, you ran the risk of someone finding out and ruining your entire life.”

“I always said Wausau was going to be another Milwaukee or Madison someday, and it is sure on its way,” she says. “The younger generations will never know what it meant to be gay in Wausau.”

Recently, driving through downtown, McCarty got caught at the stoplight on the corner of 2^nd and Scott. Like so many historic queer spaces, The Lark has been replaced by a large surface parking lot.

Debbie, trophy winner

Drag show at The Lark

Debbie in drag (as a girl!) at The Lark

She was lost in thought, remembering the fun, the community, and the fear of that little corner bar—so lost, in fact, that the driver behind her honked several times to bring her back to reality.

"I just sat there for awhile," she said. “I was lost in La La Land, thinking about all the fun that we had."

"And that’s how I remember The Lark. I don’t think about the bad times, I don’t think about the scary times. I just remember all the fun times.”

The Lark won't just be remembered as a bar, but as a moment of courage. It might have been a temporary haven, a brightly lit stage in a dimly lit time in Wisconsin history, but it was also a transformative moment in Wausau’s growth. It was a courageous endeavor by a woman who chose to build a community even when the world told her she shouldn't.

By defying expectations, in nearly every chapter of her remarkable life, Debbie McCarty made Wisconsin history.

Debbie McCarty, 2025