Steve Wheeler and Dale Franklin Schultz, Jr. were both from Kansas, moving to Illinois during an active period in the LGBT movement there and co-founding the regional gay newspaper Rock River News of Rockford, Illinois. In 1989, three years after Wheeler and Schultz became committed partners, Schultz tested positive for HIV and Wheeler tested negative. In 1996 he and Wheeler broke up, and Schultz moved to Florida. He died in 2001 from AIDS-related complications, having moved back to Wichita to live with Steve Wheeler and Wheeler's new parter Jay Zander. Wheeler died in 2003.