WINTER 2013
A PUBLICATION OF WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
The Commons
The Bald Guy (and Gal) Challenge! Facing the prospect of losing his hair from high-dose chemotherapy, Dr. J. Todd Billings threw down the gauntlet: “Shave your head with me, and a donor will give $100 per head to a research group focused on my cancer!” Additional donors upped the ante, and 15 brave ones accepted the challenge, including the seminary’s president, four professors, one staff member, and eight students. Rev. Jon Brown, son of President Timothy Brown, was an innocent onlooker but took up his father’s challenge to fill an empty seat and got his shaved too, putting the total to 16. On Friday, February 22 in the atrium of Western Theological Seminary, the group submitted their heads to stylist volunteers from Tulip City Beauty College and Engedi Salon. Shavers clicked on and the buzzing began! When all the hair had fallen to the floor, over $3100 had been raised to go to the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) for the purpose of (cont.)
Dr. Billings joined the crowd via Skype from his hospital bed in Butterworth Hospital with his own barber at hand.