Arlington fashion statement helps fight cancer

Published 9:19 am Tuesday, October 7, 2008

ARLINGTON — It has nothing to do with punk rock, but everything to do with big hearts.

More than 700 people in Arlington are sporting strands of neon pink hair in an effort to raise awareness about breast cancer. They’re in grocery stores, over at City Hall and in all the schools.

Leading the way is Arlington hair stylist Chris Elliott, who is on a mission to raise thousands of dollars for Pink Hair for Hope, a campaign that supports research by the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Each pink hair extension that she applies to heads in Arlington requires a $10 donation to the fundraising campaign, which is in its second year.

The owner of Studio 5 Hair Design, Elliott also hopes to do more Pink Hair for Hope extensions during October than any other hair stylist in Snohomish County.

“I am guessing that by the end of the month, we’ll have done about 1,000 extensions,” she said. “The youngest one wearing pink hair is not quite 2 and the oldest is in her 80s. It’s great to have so many people involved.”

Arlington school bus driver and well-known character Dave Chapman has pink hair extensions attached to his mustache and braided, Fu Manchu style.

“I like to have fun, and I already had my hair dyed blue and gold, the high school colors,” Chapman said. “Still, the elementary school kids on the bus were surprised to see the pink mustache. But that’s what you want. You want people to ask what the pink hair is all about.”

Chapman and his wife, fellow bus driver Deann Vanwinkle, are among the hundreds of Arlington school employees who have added pink hair this month, encouraged by school district public information officer Misti Gilman,

“Deann’s mom is a breast cancer survivor,” Chapman said. “It’s amazing how many lives this cancer touches.”

The high school student body’s Community Committee joined the fundraising effort this week and invited Elliott to the school to do hair extensions.

Arlington High School art teacher Bev Schatz was among the long line of students and staff waiting Monday in the high school library, where Elliott was busy attaching pink hair extensions as fast as she could go at $10 a pop.

“I am so proud of these students. This effort really touches my heart,” Schatz said. “If my husband had any hair, I’d bring him in for an extension, too.”

English teacher Alice Smithson donated enough money to get pink hair extensions for her daughter and all the girls on the high school soccer team.

“I told the girls that statistics show that one out of eight women will die because of breast cancer,” Smithson said. “That’s two or three of their teammates.”

Boys joined girls in the queue. Senior baseball players Jeff Huge, 18, Curtis Johnson, 17, and Thane Street, 18, were in line to get pink rat tails at their napes or strands to hang over their eyebrows.

Jeff Huge said he felt it was his duty to help out. Curtis Johnson said he was doing it in honor of his grandmother, who is a cancer survivor.

“It’s just a cool thing to do,” Thane Street said. “And we don’t mind the pink color. We’re secure in ourselves.”

At City Hall, men and women in every office are wearing pink hair this month.

“It just shows what the kind of caring community we have,” said Debbie Strotz in the finance office. “Lots of people in town are getting pink hair, but mostly at City Hall it’s a solidarity thing.”

Strotz’s colleague, city spokeswoman Kristin Banfield, has been battling breast cancer she was diagnosed in April. After undergoing several surgeries, Banfield now calls herself a survivor.

“The (Pink Hair for Hope) campaign is great because the money goes to research. Someday we’ll find the causes and cures, and my daughter won’t have to go through this,” Banfield said.

She said she, too, plans to get pink hair.

“It’s fun and it’s a great way to show your heart,” she said.

Reporter Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427 or gfiege@heraldnet.com.