"How many gay people could there possibly be in West Virginia?" they asked Milam, then a senior in college and the first graduate of his high school to attend the Ivy League school.

Now 23, Milam is the first full-time staffer for Fairness West Virginia, a group founded in 2009 that advocates for gays and lesbians. One of his biggest challenges as program director, he said, is to show state leaders that rural communities have a stake in gay-rights issues.

"There's a big stereotype that gay people only live in New York City or in other major metropolitan areas," said Milam, who started his new job April 1.

After graduating from Yale with a history degree, Milam worked as a paralegal at a small criminal defense firm in New York.

Now, he is working out of Fairness West Virginia's first office, a bright little space in a West Side office building where he's still unpacking boxes.

"I'm so excited to be back," he said, "but it's also a huge responsibility."

Until now, volunteers had run the organization.

Five years ago, Milam applied to Yale "on a whim." He grew up the son of schoolteachers in the unincorporated town of Fairdale, graduating as valedictorian of his class at Liberty High School.

"I was always very good in school," he said. "It was sort of my thing."

In high school, people had suspected he was gay. A close circle of friends accepted him. Many others didn't. In gym class, boys threw batteries and bottles of pop at him. He didn't tell anyone.

He came out to his friends at age 18. Telling his family was harder. He did that a year later.

He felt liberated at college, where he was openly gay from the first day.

At first, Milam struggled in academics. Many of his college classmates had attended elite East Coast prep schools.

But he worked hard, he said, because he wanted break stereotypes of West Virginians "not being as intelligent."

He performed in "King John" and "Othello" for the Yale Undergraduate Shakespeare Company. He joined a literary society called St. Anthony Hall, where he gave presentations on company relations in 20th century coal towns and the history of evangelism. His last semester of college, he earned a 4.0.

Yale history professor George Chauncey said Milam stood out.

"I've never met another undergraduate at Yale who has remained so engaged with his or her home state, with politics and people," he said.

One time, they were trying to set up an appointment. Milam couldn't meet because he was going to a national gay-rights lobbying day in Washington, D.C.

"He told me no one would be there from West Virginia if he didn't go," Chauncey said.

Milam's senior essay on the history of gay culture in West Virginia won a prize from the school's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies program. The American Historical Association's committee on gay and lesbian history gave it an honorable mention.

"By and large, most histories of gay life have focused on big cities," Chauncey said, "just like most media representations of gay life today focus on the big cities."

As program director for Fairness, Milam will work to recruit members and boost fundraising. He'll help coordinate special events and the group's legislative agenda.

The group has two top priorities at the Statehouse, Milam said: adding sexual orientation to the state's civil rights laws -- which protect people from discrimination in housing and the workplace -- and to anti-bullying laws for students. 

Over the past few years, Fairness has worked to increase its visibility at the Statehouse, said Stephen Skinner, Fairness president. It pays a lobbyist to track legislation and push bills.

"We've reached a point where I think people are starting to understand what we're doing -- that we are focused on moving the state government and Legislature forward," Skinner said. "And we're now having much different conversation than we had even a few years ago." 

Last year, the group created a political action committee called Fairness Action, which donates to candidates. In this year's special election for governor, the PAC contributed to Democrats Jeff Kessler and Natalie Tennant, though it's not making endorsements.

Fairness West Virginia also filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a state Supreme Court case involving lesbian foster parents, and coordinated similar filings from national organizations interested in the case.

"We are so excited that someone of Bradley's talent and background wants to come back to West Virginia," Skinner said. "The number of incredibly smart and talented West Virginians who have left the state both because of the lack of opportunity, and also because of the fact that they're gay, is something that we're very conscious of." 

Reach Alison Knezevich at alis...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1240.