Broken Arrow native, former NSU student among 5 killed in Colorado bar shooting

By John Dobberstein, Editor

Daniel Aston moved to Colorado Springs a couple of years ago with his family and found a community that loved and accepted him.

But that tragically ended late Saturday when a gunman entered at a nightclub and killed 5 people, including Aston, 28. Aston was a bartender at Club Q, an LGBTQ bar, and he was a frequent performer there as well.

Aston was a 2013 graduate of Broken Arrow High School. He also attended Northeastern State University in Tahlequah and became president of its LGBTQ club.

On a typical night at Club Q, Aston could be seen letting loose and sliding across the stage on his knees tailed by his mullet to whoops and hollers, according to The Associated Press.

The venue provided Aston, a transgender man and the self-proclaimed “Master of Silly Business,” with the liberating performances he had long sought.

“He was the happiest he had ever been,” said his mother, Sabrina Aston, in a Colorado Public Radio story. “He was thriving and having fun and having friends. It’s just unbelievable. He had so much more life to give to us and to all to his friends and to himself.”