Cutting for a cause
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Eight Farragut High School seniors had their heads shaved last Friday, Oct. 17, as part of the school’s breast cancer awareness event. Pictured from left to right: Will Feehan, Hank Tate, Rhodes Bryan, Oliver Gerwin, Maddox Craft, Asher Watson, Ian Morgan and Jake Mink. - Jake Nichols
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Farragut High School senior Will Feehan reacts to his hair being shaved off Friday, Oct. 16, at Eddie Courtney Stadium. - Jake Nichols
At 8:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 16, Maddox Craft took a deep breath, looked around and uttered four words: “We got this, y’all.”
Two minutes later, a similarly nervous tone arose from Rhodes Bryan: “It’s really hitting now.”
But it didn’t really hit — not fully, at least — until 8:37 p.m.
At that point, mouths hung open in shock where nervous laughter had bubbled forth moments earlier. Eyes wide, eight Farragut high school senior boys — Jake Mink, Asher Watson, Rhodes Bryan, Will Feehan, Oliver Gerwin, Maddox Craft, Ian Morgan and Hank Tate — looked around in disbelief.
Heads freshly shaved, they grinned and gasped while looking down at the locks that lay below their chairs on the track of Eddie Courtney Stadium.
Their united act — to shave their heads in support of breast cancer awareness — was the latest culmination of a month-long event that dates back almost a decade.
“We started the pink-out nine years ago with t-shirts, and the head shaving started eight years ago with seniors wanting to raise extra money,” said Stephanie Thompson, who founded the annual Farragut High School fundraiser in honor of her late sister. “We’ve sold 6,000 total shirts over nine years. My sister Ashley passed away from breast cancer in 2013, so that’s why I wanted to do it.
“To see all the shirts and all the pink, it’s something fun for the whole community to do,” she added. “I think Ashley would love it. She was always like, ‘God picked me because I would be the one to join everybody together.’ And I’m so impressed! To be a senior and be okay with losing your hair at 17, 18 years old, it’s impressive.”
According to Thompson, this year’s event raised $8,830 for the American Cancer Society.
But it was special for reasons beyond the fundraising, too, as one mother-son duo illustrated.
“I found out my mom had breast cancer my freshman year, and it was pretty hard for me,” Farragut senior Jake Mink said of his mother, Farragut High School assistant principal Kim Mink. “But since then, I always knew I wanted to do this. Since then, she
has been good, but it’s something I wanted to do for her. I think it’s just a senior thing, so I’ve been waiting my turn and I’m glad I get the opportunity to.”
“The Thompsons have led this charge for many years in honor of their sister and daughter, and it’s beautiful to hear and see the Farragut community come together
and buy shirts every year and keep that memory alive for
all the ladies and people we have lost to cancer,” Kim Mink said.
Once Mink and other parents and friends were done giving out the haircuts, a representative from Studio 135 in Farragut swept up the locks to discard them.
Thompson said they have partnered with the salon every year for the event, adding that the kids who receive the haircuts can go to the salon for free touch-ups to address any spots that were missed.
Farragut senior Will Feehan could have seen one during his examination, as he held his iPhone in selfie mode during the cut.
But afterward, he and all the other participants were all smiles for a group photo — bald heads and all.
“It’s a huge honor that he and all these other boys are willing to sacrifice hair and all these other things just to show love,” Kim Mink said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”
