Community Showcase takes Huntley back to small-town roots

Huntley's got talent.

That was obvious from the 32 acts strutting their stuff Sunday in the first Community Showcase held at Huntley High School.

The Education Foundation, which organized the fundraising show, will use the proceeds to benefit teachers and students within Huntley District 158.

According to Director Kim Skaja, Sunday's event was inspired by a children's Christmas show in Huntley in the 1990s, before the town's growth spurt.

Instead of holding the event around the frenzied Christmas holiday, the group thought Valentine's Day weekend would work better with everyone's schedules, Skaja said.

The idea behind Sunday's event, besides showing off everyone's talents, was to bring Huntley back to its small-town roots, said Rosemary Herringer, the event's chairwoman.

During the show's intermission, they had an old-fashioned ice cream social.

"We're trying to go back to that nostalgic era when Huntley was a small town," she said.

The show's cast of 130 people included everyone from kindergartners to senior citizens, and the acts they put on transcended multiple generations:

• The More than Sound high school band channeled 1990s angst with Weezer's "Say it Ain't So."

• District residents Carolyn Bien and Richard Holloman breathed life into skits from the old "Laugh-In" television show that featured Arte Johnson as the "dirty old man" and Ruth Buzzi, who wasn't afraid to put him in his place with her purse.

• Tiniya and Gabriella Martinez, in second and third grade respectively, danced to a hip-hop remix of the classic "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah."

• Kennedy Lucas and Tyler Nowotnik clicked and clattered all over their stage as they tap danced to an Elvis medley.

• Third-grader Sofiya Kyryrlyak brought a touch of class to the proceedings with her violin performance of Hayden's "Violin Concerto in G Major."

Thanks to the more than 400 spectators, the inaugural talent show raised nearly $6,000, enough money to consider bringing it back next year, Herringer said.

"We hope to," she said. "And the way it's going right now, it would seem that we would."