To the outside world, the trajectory of Paul
Kiger’s life has resembled the bar chart of a great
annual report – a steady upward climb to the top.
“He’s just a force of nature,” said Sarah Ring, his
business partner for the last five years. “Always in
full motion, working, thinking and acting faster
than everyone else.”
High school class president. Marching band.
School theater. Tennis team. Plus, he worked at
his family’s grocery store in tiny New Middletown,
Ind., and for his father’s roofing business.
Played baseball in the summer, basketball
all winter. Drove go-karts on a track his father
built for him in the backyard. Rode scooters
and four-wheelers on gravel roads. Went with
his grandmother to a picture-perfect Methodist
church out in the middle of a cornfield.
New Middletown, population 83, had one stop
sign in the middle of town. A model, small-town,
Southern Indiana childhood, right out of a Booth
Tarkington novel or an Andy Hardy movie.
And then, on to Ball State University, where
Kiger was the only freshman to have his own
news show on the campus radio station and was
the vice president of his fraternity, pledge trainer
and social chair. “I was the one who brought the
girls to the parties,” Kiger said.
Also, while in school, he worked for the Ball
State Foundation, calling alumni and asking for
50 EXTOL : DECEMBER 2018/JANUARY 2019
money. “I was raising $25,000 a semester,” he said,
which taught him something about a skill of his
that could prove useful in the future. “I learned
that I was good on the phone and that I had a
salesman’s personality.”
Denial and unacceptance
As far as Kiger’s internal life, though, there
were bumps in the bar chart. While appearing to
thrive at Ball State, he was also insecure, a small-
town boy intimidated by upperclassmen from
Indianapolis and Chicago. “I still had a country
accent then,” he said, “which I spent a lot of time
working to get rid of.” Another trait to add to his
skill set – a chameleon-like ability to change his
colors to whatever he felt the situation demanded.
But his small-town accent was easy to change,
in comparison to the secret he was then harboring.
Kiger is gay. And even in the “Will and Grace” stage
of the late 20th century, where so much was out of
the closet and celebrated, that was scary to him.
In fact, at first, it was a secret he didn’t entirely
understand. Then it became a secret he understood
enough to keep it hidden from the world – even
from himself.
“I remember being bullied in high school,” he
said. “Maybe it was because they were all wearing
Carhartt pants and camo boots and I was wearing
Doc Martens and Guess jeans. I could say it was
all that redneck stuff. But I wasn’t accepting me,
so why should anyone else accept me?”
He was in denial. “I thought dating girls would
‘fix’ me,” he said. “So, I dated a lot, the prettiest
girls, but that wasn’t any kind of a magic pill.”
The effort to keep it private, while still reaching
for all those symbols of what he thought meant
success – money, great car, great house, great
wardrobe – began a descent into alcoholism and
prescription drug addiction. It wasn’t until later,
when Kiger was able to come to terms with all
his demons, that he realized true relief, a flight
to freedom.
But that came much later. In these earlier
stages of his career, Kiger’s life did not appear to
the world to be the life of a tortured man. Which
is exactly the way he carefully planned it.
“He’s mister charm, charismatic, bigger than
life,” said Ring. “People are drawn to him.”
“He’s perfect out in the world,” said long-
time friend Debbie Farmer, owner of Creative
Enterprises in New Albany.
“Perfect out in the world,” perhaps, but to Kiger
it was part of an exhausting self-camouflaging
program. He partied hard, partly to help deal
with his secret and his insecurities – and then
just to party.