SNOQUALMIE – Mount Si High School is a close-knit community of friends and teachers. So when sophomore Audra Gilmore started losing her hair from chemotherapy, about 65 students and two teachers shaved their heads to show their support.
The mass shearing began May 4 when Gilmore shaved her biology teacher’s head, upon his request. Then 17 students stood in line for their turn, and the enthusiasm snowballed.
Biology teacher Brian Hill thought up the idea when visiting Gilmore in the hospital after she’d undergone surgery Feb. 1 to remove a 5-pound tumor from her abdomen that had plagued her for months. The tumor turned out to be cancerous, and chemotherapy was ordered.
“I said, ‘Hey, if you lose your hair, you can shave mine off,'” Hill said. “It’s all about showing support because to go through this, she doesn’t have the option of losing her hair – we do.”
On Monday afternoon, Gilmore, sporting a wide grin, stood in a pile of multicolored hair – including magenta – and shaved the heads of her friends, her acquaintances and teens she’d never met.
“I don’t know her, but I know what it’s like to feel different, and we all just want to come out and show that we don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable here,” said Mount Si junior Brandon Choate.
The line of students waiting for a shave or trim in Hill’s classroom, where the event took place, kept growing.
“The main point of this is to show our support and just to help her get through all the hard times. To show that we care, because she’s too young to go through what she’s going through right now,” said sophomore Ian Mengedoht, who has known Gilmore since they attended Opstad Elementary together.
Gilmore also cut several inches off of her female friends’ hair, the ones who couldn’t part with their manes but still wanted to show support.
“I wanted to do it so she wouldn’t be the only girl in school without hair,” said sophomore Rachel Lindt, who had her dark blonde hair completely shaved off. “I just thought this would be a good way to support her, because girls, we have a very big attachment to our hair. It’s an important thing.” Lindt has attended Mount Si High less than six weeks, and didn’t hesitate to reach out to someone she barely knew.
About five girls had their heads completely shaved.
“That is my friend. And if she’s got to buzz her hair, then I do, too,” said junior Nathalie Moreno, who transferred to Mount Si High from Los Angeles just two months ago, and shed all but the bangs of her purple locks for the cause. “If everyone was doing this for me, I’d be like, ‘Wow.’ There’s no other way to describe it, the school is really pulling together and is in total unity.”
About half of the students who were sheared stepped forth during last Friday’s assembly in a show of support.
Gilmore was the chief barber, and along with a hairstylist and ASB adviser Lynn Fallows, sheared off several industrial size trash bags’ worth of hair.
The haircutting wasn’t the only show of support from Gilmore’s classmates. They also made 1,000 origami paper cranes to let her know they were thinking of her. The students’ response has been heartwarming to Gilmore and her mother, Cindy Forsythe, and Gilmore said she enjoyed playing the part of barber.
“It was kind of weird with all of the bald heads, but it was fun because you see everyone there being supportive. And it helps because it makes me feel better that I’m not alone, because everyone else has bald heads now. It just lets me know that people are supportive and they care about what I’m going through.”
Gilmore, who turns 16 next month, enjoys playing soccer and basketball and doing typical high-school activities with her friends. She’s also in the process of getting her driver’s license. But she never imagined getting ovarian cancer and losing the light brown hair that had grown past her shoulders.
“It’s still kind of weird; I still don’t believe that I have it because it seems like myself or someone my age wouldn’t really have it. You always hear about it on TV but you don’t think that it could really happen to you,” she said.
