BonnerSprings.com

Fifth-graders at Bonner Springs Elementary School raised close to $200 last year by selling singing telegrams for Valentine's Day.

Music teacher Penny Byerly thinks the students will surpass that amount this year.

"We did this last year, and it was an excellent project," Byerly said. "It's fun for everyone."

Selling more than $200 worth of singing telegrams may not sound like much, but when considering students and staff members can buy each singing telegram for 50 cents, Byerly and her students have a long "note" to sing.

If singing was not enough, the students also dance with each one of the telegrams they deliver.

Byerly said the students have been practicing their parts and have become pretty good at both singing and dancing, but it is sometimes hard to mesh those two individual skills into a combined performance.

"They can sing, and they can dance," Byerly said. "Putting it together is what's more difficult."

Students in the fifth-grade choir at the school will actually be delivering the singing telegrams to their classmates.

One of the most tiring parts of delivering all the telegrams on the same day is that the students wander the building so much and become worn out, Byerly said.

Students also get so tired because of the system the group uses to deliver the telegrams.

For instance, if one student gets 10 singing telegrams from his or her classmates, the group doesn't sing them all at once.

Despite the work involved with the telegrams, Byerly said the students enjoyed the experience last year. Still, Byerly said some of the students may have additional motivation for wanting to help with the singing telegrams.

"They love doing it," Byerly said. "Besides, it gets them out of school."

Byerly and the students learned a lot about the work that goes into delivering so many singing telegrams when they did it last year.

"They're exhausted by the end of the day because they've been dancing," Byerly said. "Actually, we've got it down to almost a science. It takes about two minutes to deliver one."

The singing telegrams went on sale Monday and can be purchased until next Wednesday. Proceeds from this year's sale will be split between the families of Tony Holmes and Jason Hutzel.

Holmes and Hutzel, students at Bonner Springs Elementary, remain at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., while recovering from their bouts with group A strep.

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