Maine school district pays drag queen ‘Priscilla Poppycocks’ $1,000 speaking fee

A Maine public school is under fire after a Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) request returned documents showing the school paid a drag queen to talk to minors.

While the FOAA documents tend to support the school’s claim that no taxpayer dollars were used to fund the performances, documents obtained by The Lion show that the money came from a private foundation that generates its investment income in Central America and the Caribbean.

Maine’s Bangor High School (BHS) paid Dominick Varney, who goes by the stage name Priscilla Poppycocks, $1,000 to give a talk to students about being gay.

The talk included a catered lunch while students watched the presentation, reported the Epoch Times.

Fox News reports that one other performer was paid $1,000, but that performer’s name was redacted.  

Varney, whose social media was sprinkled with sexual innuendo, is a professor at the University of Maine, and performs drag shows at gay bars in the state, including a bar called Happy Endings.  

Although Varney’s Facebook page for “Priscilla Poppycocks” is still functional, the Instagram account is either inactive or has been deleted.  

Varney once played Judas, in a stage production of Jesus Christ Superstar, according to the University of Maine alumni website.  

Shawn McBreairty, a father and parental rights activist, who was responsible for uncovering the documents that led to the revelations, accuses the school of misallocating resources amidst an education crisis in the state.  

“This is a clear political message from these people running our schools that drag-performers are more important than the basics of education for our Maine students, which all Maine schools are failing at,” McBreairty told Fox News Digital. 

Across grade levels, Maine schools have shown big drops in academic scores following the pandemic, according to Maine Public Radio. 

Emails revealed by McBreairty from the FOAA request seem to bear out his interpretation that Varney’s hiring was political.  

“I just know you are a role model for these kids, and we just want you to shine a light on them,” BHS English teacher Emilie Throckmorton wrote to Varney, according to the Epoch Times.  

Throckmorton and the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion coordinator, Dana Carver-Bialer, were responsible for the hiring of Varney, said the Epoch Times.  

In an email shown by Fox News, Carver-Bialer said the performances were paid for through a grant by the Nellie Mae Foundation, a private foundation which it says was founded to combat “anti-black structural racism.”  

The foundation made over 250 grants, mostly for student organizing, in campuses across the country.  

The grants were made possible by $47 million of investment activities in Central America and the Caribbean, according to data the foundation supplied to the IRS for the year 2021, uncovered by The Lion.