Tammy Valencia has the courage to face a room full of second-graders each morning at Sunflower School, but she admitted that making her singing and dancing debut Friday night at Liberty Hall gave her the jitters.

“Second-graders can’t judge you too much,” she said. “They like everything you do; they don’t know any different. When you’re in front of adults it’s a little bit different.”

But Valencia and a group of trilling teachers from Sunflower wowed the crowd at the 15th annual Foundation Follies, a variety show fund-raiser featuring the hidden talents of Lawrence teachers, with a rendition of “It’s My Paycheck, and I’ll Cry If I Want To.”

Not all of the 20 performances were as sardonic, however. Several teachers demonstrated their musical skills with guitar and vocal performances, and the intermission featured the serious business of naming Carolyn Gaddis of Pinckney School the Lawrence Educator of the Year.

Still, poking fun at the trials and tribulations of teaching proved to be the overarching theme of the evening.

Angie Koenig, a nurse at Langston Hughes and Schwegler schools, took part in a skit highlighting some of the more unseemly “fashions” adorned by Lawrence students.

Koenig dyed her hair purple and blue, and, with the help of a considerable amount of styling product, sculpted a sizable mohawk atop her head.

A group of educators from Sunflower School perform Its My Paycheck and Ill

“It took about one hour and four hands,” Koenig said. “I won’t wear this to school every day.”

Other sketches poked fun at the challenges of securing funding from the Kansas Legislature and getting students through assessment tests.

“Sometimes (the skits are) political,” said Lawrence Schools Foundations board president Steve Glass. “But we hope not too political.”

6News video: Variety show features hidden talents (04-22-05)

Glass estimated the event would raise $20,000 for the foundation.