With freshly shaved bald heads bobbing among the crowd and the occasional tufts of freshly shaven hair drifting across the sidewalks like tumbleweeds, Lansdowne Arm’s St. Baldrick’s Foundation Fundraiser once again drew hundreds for its annual head-shaving festival.
Surrounded by Irish dancers, bagpipers and bouncy castles, around 100 participants stepped up March 16 to have their heads shaved by stylists from Floyd’s Barbershop. And each one had a story.
Stepping up to the stage set up on the Town Center sidewalk in front of Jimmy John’s, Hunter Worley, 12, raised $1,425 for the St. Patrick’s Day-themed event. He said his friend’s mother died of cancer last year, following two family friends who also died of cancer.
“I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose someone important to you like that,” Worley said, rubbing his newly bald head. “So, I decided to do something about it.”
KIMN Mix 100 DJ Jeremy Padgett had his head shaved in memory of Austin Williams, who died of a muscle cell cancer a year ago, shortly after the teenager turned 17. Williams had undergone three years of cancer treatment before dying.
“It’s just such important research,” Padgett said, after his 2-year-old son Reid had fun rubbing his freshly shaved head. “As a parent, you realize how important this is.”
Williams’ mother, Daelyn Larche-Sigman, told the crowd watching and waiting for the popular buzz cuts that her son encouraged her to listen to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” soon after he was diagnosed.
“Pretty soon, it became our theme song,” she said.
After he received his dream car, a blue 1972 Chevelle with white racing stripes, Williams and his parents founded a local charity called Rollin’ Dreams. The nonprofit focuses on activities for teens diagnosed with cancer and raising funds.
Matt Pilon raised around $500 for the event, where onlookers cheered for him as his wavy, 5-inch locks fell to the concrete. At 15 years old, Pilon’s brother Tyler passed away in December 2005 from Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone cancer.
“I’ve shaved my head every year since then,” Pilon said.
When asked if he would do it again, Pilon simply said, “oh, yeah.”
KIMN Mix 100 and Lansdowne Arm’s have hosted the event since 2005. Last year, the foundation raised $22,000 for childhood cancer research. In its eighth year, the event raised more than $18,000 for shaving pledges, donations and a silent auction as of the morning of March 17.
This year’s event was in honor of 12-year-old Hope Holloway, a Highlands Ranch girl who is in remission after being diagnosed with a neuroblastoma in 2007, and Aurora youth Justin Miller, who died earlier this year after being diagnosed with a neuroblastoma in 2006.
While emceeing the event, Mix 100 program director and DJ Bo Jaxon also went under the clippers, although the stylist left behind a strange pattern of brown, curly tufts. Like the scores of others walking around with news dos, he didn’t seem to mind.
“There are some beautiful, bald heads walking around here,” he said.