Jared Fewlass
As the lights dimmed and the crowd grew quiet, the stars took the stage. Friday night, the Apollo Room in the Student Union belonged to the Rainbow Alliance, family members and friends for the Third Annual Charity Drag Show.
With roughly 30 performances from both professional drag queens and amateur students, the performers raised money for the Aids Resource Center (ARC) of Dayton.
Although the money had not been counted yet, Kaytee Houser, a member of Rainbow Alliance, thought that the organization reached its goal of $3,000.
“Year after year, it just keeps getting better and better,” she said. “Everyone did great tonight, and we all had a blast,” she added.
The drag queens, with aliases including Mandy O’Toole, National Holiday, Ivanna Goodman and Hugh Johnson, all lip synched to chosen songs and received tips from audience members. All the proceeds from tips, the concession stand and ticket sales went to ARC.
Representatives from ARC also gave information about AIDS/HIV testing and audience members won trivia prizes between performances.
Some participants really got into it. One crowd member, known as John, donated money to every performer. This led to the hosts, or hostesses, giving him quite a hard time.