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Shaves and a haircut now bring $20,000
When it comes to generosity, construction workers will give everything they can.
Basin Electric Power Cooperative - March 19, 2009
By Alexandra Sukhomlinova
originally published in The Gillette News-Record
Click this link to see The Gillette News-Record front page (PDF version): Hair-raising donation
When it comes to generosity, construction workers will give everything they can.
Even their own hair.
A long line of contractors stretched in the hallway of an office house at Dry Fork power plant site Wednesday. Workers from all of the companies that help Basin Electric build its power plant north of Gillette were waiting for their turn to shave their heads for a good cause.
Helping somebody you don’t know can be as easy as going bald, but it makes a difference. The donations at the Dry Fork power plant on Wednesday made a $20,000 difference when 55 workers shaved their heads for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation that sponsors cancer research.
Some of that success took extra commitment. Take Baird Bergeman who received quite a bit of flak from his wife for participating in the fundraiser.
“She told me that I was a dumb---, for lack of a better word. She told me that they would understand if I didn’t come,” he said.
She didn’t mind that he was temporarily parting with his curly hair. She minded that he wasn’t obeying his doctor’s order.
Bergeman had a knee reconstruction surgery Tuesday and was supposed to lie with his leg elevated. Instead he came on crutches.
“If I told them I will be here, I will be here,” he said. “It’s a good reason. There’s a lot of people making a lot of money. We need to give some of it back to somebody who needs it. If everybody gets into it, you can’t go wrong.”
Knowing the history of generous donations from its construction workers, Basin Electric offered its workers the chance to donate to St. Baldrick’s Foundation. Some workers signed up for it in advance, others challenged their coworkers on the spot on Wednesday and went under the shears.
Some grew out their hair for the occasion, others had never let the scissors touch their locks.
But the electric shears didn’t discriminate in the small, crowded room and piles of hair quickly piled up.
Four hairstylists and the crowds surrounding those getting shaved made sure they had fun with it: Steve Riss with the Hair Gallery, Chad Sheehan with the Razor City Barber Shop, Nicole Merchen with the Rose Salon, and Michelle Kuntz, who is a record coordinator for Basin Electric but happens to have a stylist license.
The crowd burst out laughing when Riss created a mawhawk on the head of one of Titan’s supervisors. Sheehan and Riss experimented with every shavee’s hair before shaving it off completely. With each new image, the crowd was laughing louder and louder.
“You have to keep it, you have to keep it,” the contractors were yelling to each other.
As these workers were making fun of each other’s new looks, their wives videotaped the transformation.
Josh Gazaway’s wife, Tracy, was one of them.
“I’m glad I won’t have to shave his hair because it’s a pain in the butt. He has some thick hair,” said Tracy Gazaway as she stepped out in front of the crowd with her camera.
Shaving off his hair was nothing unusual for her husband. He always keeps his hair short. But he was the one in the crowd who went an extra mile for a good cause.
He challenged his company, Titan Construction, to collect $5,000. In exchange, he promised to shave his beard and his eyebrows.
That promise shocked his wife, but it worked well to boost the donations from $2,000 to $5,000.
“The hair doesn’t bother me, but the eyebrows do,” Tracy said. “It’s different, but it’s for a good cause.”
Some workers participated in the event for the fun of winning the bet, others gave their hair for the reward of helping those who desperately need it.
But there also were those for whom giving their hair was more than just an act of kindness. It was personal.
Shane Fluharty never had long hair, but he never went as far as being bald. But he saw his mother lose her hair when she was going through chemotherapy. She died a few years ago from cancer.
When Fluharty heard about the St. Baldrick’s fundraiser, he couldn’t stay away. Shaving his hair was the least he could do to help someone who might be going through that battle with the deadly disease.
His wife Shawna although couldn’t believe he was serious about shaving his hair.
“She gave me a hard time,” Fluharty said.
She kept asking him if he was serious.
But when Fluharty woke up Wednesday, there was a note on the mirror left by his wife.
It said: “I’m proud of you.”
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