Pablo Arauz Peña, KTOO

In this newscast:

• A group that wants to save a neglected site where the Alaska territorial flag was designed, sewn and first flown sued this week.
• Alaska’s job losses weren’t as steep as the national average but the state’s recovery is lagging behind nearly every other state.
• For many Alaska communities, the early end of the 2020 census means committees have to work harder to count everyone.
• Some University of Alaska students have called for the resignation of the student regent following a lengthy email.
• Juneau’s belated Pride celebration wasn’t complete with its annual Glitz drag show which was held outdoors for the first time.

Juneau’s LGBTQ+ community celebrated Pride last week with a series of events focused on advocacy and support for each other.

But the celebration wasn’t complete without the annual Glitz drag show. And this year, the show was held outdoors for the first time to maintain social distancing.

Juneau’s drag mother GiGi Monroe is getting ready for her first in-person show in about six months.

Since the pandemic began, she’s been hosting digital drag shows with plenty of support from the community, but says it’s just not the same as getting on stage.

“It’s really hard when you’re trying to imagine a room of 100 people when you’re performing and all that you see is your phone or your laptop and that’s definitely the biggest challenge,” said Monroe.

Monroe, who goes by James Hoagland when not performing, and husband Jeff Rogers partner with Juneau-based LGBTQ+ social group SEAGLA to host the annual Glitz drag show to celebrate Pride.

Now in its sixth year, the show was postponed until organizers found a way to host an outdoor show in person. It got so much community support, they added a second performance.

“With this being our first time attempting an outdoor live show, there were so many variables in play,” Monroe said. “We didn’t want to take on something that was like way more than we could handle.”

The stage for the show is set up in the parking lot of a dorm at The University of Alaska Southeast.

At 10 minutes to showtime, Monroe is in a trailer wearing her Vegas showgirl opening number outfit — a rhinestone dress with a rainbow feathered headpiece and black opera length gloves. She’s also wearing a protective face shield.

“It feels awesome,” Monroe said. “We’ve missed each other so much and just to be here, live with the other performers is really, really a treat.”

Ricky Tagaban, whose stage name is Lituya Hart, is one of the eight performers at this year’s Glitz. Tagaban says the fun in drag is the visual storytelling.

“I really like feeling pretty, selfishly, that’s probably like, one of the biggest reasons,” said Tagaban.

Tagaban dressed as Cyndi Lauper and performed a remix version of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”

“I love her aesthetic,” Tagaban said. “I just think she’s very fun and very artistic and she seems very free. And I’ve always been really drawn to that sort of freedom.”

The Juneau drag scene is also known for having its fair share of drag kings. Brita J. Fagerstrom who’s known onstage as Roman Wilde is one of the kings who performed at Glitz.

“Kings bring a lot of different energies to, you know, shows,” said Fagerstrom. “Not that it’s competitive, but you kind of feel the pressure to like, make yourself better and more exciting for every show. You know, that’s kind of the way the family feels.”

Fagerstrom did two numbers: one as an 80s rocker performing ACDC’s “Highway to Hell” and the second as Waldo from the “Where’s Waldo” books, performing Matthew Wilder’s “Break My Stride.”

And Fagerstrom says after several months without performing on a stage, the Glitz show was a “5 million dollar ticket.”

“Especially something like drive-in drag, that’s like completely foreign to me even as like a bar king,” said Fagerstrom. “I normally perform at bars in front of people but the added caliber of like the cars and the lights, it was just phenomenal.”

As for the audience — whose cars filled the lot of both shows — the cheerful honking said it all.

In this newscast:

• Civil rights groups are asking Alaska’s lieutenant governor not to enforce the requirement that voters get a witness to sign the envelope of their mail-in ballots.
• Seafood companies bring thousands of seasonal workers to Alaska’s fishing towns every year, but this year’s summer workers were largely unseen.
• A company operating one of the world’s largest zinc mines in Alaska says thawing permafrost linked to global warming has forced an expenditure of $20 million.
• Documents provided to The Associated Press show the Trump administration is seeking to fast-track environmental reviews of dozens of major energy and infrastructure projects.

In this newscast:

• Juneau School District officials say they have about 10 percent fewer students than they forecast in the spring.
• Since the pandemic hit, the number of people choosing to fly has tanked, but in Alaska that’s often not an option.
• Some Southeast Alaska towns are setting rain records this summer.
• The Anchorage Assembly says it will reopen meetings for in-person participation by members of the public.

In this newscast:

• Construction on a new bike track in Juneau’s Cope Park will begin as soon as the weather allows.
• When a child needed to be medevaced to Anchorage, residents in the Southwest Alaska village of Igiugig came together to light the airport’s runway.
• Juneau’s Augustus Brown Pool in downtown reopens on September 8 with limited capacity.
• Restaurants and bars in Anchorage reopen today for dine-in service with multiple restrictions.
• Administrators say student athletes at UA Fairbanks are in quarantine after players on the hockey team tested positive for COVID-19 after an off-campus party.

In this newscast:

• After the first week of school in Juneau, families are reporting highs and lows with the all-distance learning start of the year.
• People in Juneau — and around the country — say they’re getting mysterious packages in the mail from overseas.
• The Bering Sea pollock fishing fleet was going about its business Wednesday afternoon when it encountered a flotilla of Russian military ships.