![\"play\"](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\"){kind=icon}
<\/div>\n<\/div>\nStark Pride Marks Fifth Year With Guest<\/p>\n
The Stark Pride Festival will be June 13 in downtown Canton. Featuring drag queen star Onya Nurve, the event is needed more than ever, organizers say.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/media-video><\/div>\n
<\/story-highlights> CANTON \u2212 The Stark Pride Festival<\/a> is marking its fifth year with a special celebrity guest.<\/p>\n Stark County native Onya Nurve<\/a>, who won “RuPaul’s Drag Race” last year, will sing and perform at the June 13 festival at Centennial Plaza in downtown Canton.<\/p>\n Organizers are excited to have Onya Nurve among the entertainers. And they are proud to host another festival celebrating diversity, acceptance, equality, love and inclusion.<\/p>\n “This year, at the request of our youth, we went with a fairly high-end headliner Madison Rose, and at the last minute, we’ve wound up with Onya Nurve,” said Jonathan Becker, board president of Stark Pride and chairman of the entertainment committee. “And that came about because (Onya Nurve) and our (Stark Pride Festival) emcee Kardi Redd Diamond are good friends, and they’re going to perform together.<\/p>\n “I think our local community’s excited to have a local individual who had gained celebrity status come and visit us,” he added.<\/p>\n Becker said Stark Pride is not planning anything specifically to commemorate the fifth-year anniversary of the festival, which started in 2022.<\/p>\n But the purpose of the Stark Pride Festival<\/a> remains as vital as ever, he said.<\/p>\n “It’s an incredibly important event for the community at-large,” Becker said. “I often say Pride saves lives, and it does, clear and simple.<\/p>\n “Every year, there’s at least one person who finds their way to Pride who finds themselves among so many people who are like they are,” Becker said. “It allows them to know they have a foundation to stand on; it allows them to know they have family everywhere, and they’ll lift them up and support them.”<\/p>\n Here’s what else you need to know about the Stark Pride Festival.<\/p>\n Onya Nurve’s real name is Justin Woody, a former Perry High School student who studied painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art and also performed in shows at the\u00a0Players Guild Theatre<\/a>\u00a0in Canton and in other local productions.<\/p>\n In the spring of 2025, Onya Nurve was crowned America’s “next drag superstar” by winning “RuPaul’s Drag Race” in the 17th season of the\u00a0Emmy Award-winning series<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The entertainer won a $200,000 grand prize, crown and scepter and a year’s supply of high-end cosmetics.<\/p>\n\n
1. Drag queen star returns home<\/h2>\n