to LGBT issues in journalism. Aarons believed that coverage of the gay community, as with other minorities, required training of journalists. He began to lobby journalism schools to include gay issues in their diversity training. In 1999, as a visiting professor of journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, he founded and directed its Sexual Orientation Issues in the News program. Adapted by universities, the program analyzes how the media has shaped public perception of people and issues since the early 20th century. In 2003, Aarons, Dane S. Claussen, David L. Adams, and several other U.S. journalism professors relaunched the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Interest Group of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The group biannually presents the Leroy F. Aarons Award for career contributions to media-oriented education and research affecting LGBTQ. In 1985, Aarons started We the People - The Voice North Bay's LGBT Community, which was a monthly newspaper for 27 years. Music and opera Aarons had a love of music and often invited colleagues and friends to his home in California for sing-along parties. In the last decade of his career, Aarons turned to opera, writing the libretto for Monticello. Composed by Glenn Paxton, Monticello portrays the love affair between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. L. A. Theatre Works produced the original work in 2000. After the attacks of Sep 11, 2001, Aarons wrote the libretto for Sara's Diary, 9/11, an opera composed by his collaborator on Monticello, Glenn Paxton. A song cycle, this work is a fictional account of a pregnant woman, who, after her husband dies in the tragedy, experiences deeply mixed emotions. It premiered at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center on Sep 8, 2003 in commemoration of the unprecedented attacks. Prayers for Bobby In 1989 Aarons read a newspaper article about the suicide of a young gay man, Bobby Griffith, and its effects on his mother. After he left daily journalism in 1991, he researched the story in depth. The result was his first book, published by HarperCollins in 1995, Prayers for Bobby: A Mother's Coming to Terms with the Suicide of Her Gay Son. He did not see it presented to a large viewership before he died. Prayers for Bobby premiered on January 24, 2009, as a Lifetime TV film starring Sigourney Weaver in her first made-for-television film. Other works In 1991 Aarons revisited the Pentagon Papers case, co-authoring