EVERETT — Richard Maxwell is hard to miss.
With his brightly dyed mohawk haircut, the Cascade View Presbyterian Church elder welcomes conversation with people he doesn’t know wherever he goes.
“It’s fun,” he said. “I’ve met some very interesting people over the mohawk.”
The hairstyle also gives him the opportunity to advertise events for the church he has been a parishioner of for the past 22 years. Lately he’s paired neon pink and green colored hair dye with the words “Follow me to” and “Rummage sale” in face paint on either side of his head.
When people ask him where they should go, Maxwell, 67, tells them the rummage sale is at Cascade View Presbyterian Church.
The annual sale to benefit the church started on Friday and will continue from 9 a.m. to noon today at 1030 E. Casino Road in Everett.
Maxwell washes the dye out of his hair every night and reapplies a new combination of colors the next morning. His wife, Kay, paints on the message he wants people to read.
The routine started last October when the Cascade View Presbyterian Church Women’s Association was having a tough time finding someone to volunteer as chairman of the church Christmas bazaar. Maxwell said he would volunteer for the job as long as he could be a little bizarre himself.
He got the job, then cut his white hair, dyed it red and styled it into a mohawk.
“There’s a serious part of church, but there’s a fun part of church,” he said.
Whether he’s at church or some place else, people tell Maxwell they like his hair, Kay Maxwell said. Some ask to take a picture with him.
“I have not found one person to make a bad remark about it because he does it so naturally,” she said. “It’s just part of him.”
Maxwell has different colors for different seasons or whatever he’s wearing. It was green when they went to the Everett Home and Garden Show in March. He dyed it bright pink when they attended a Washington Stealth lacrosse game to promote breast cancer research. On Memorial Day, Maxwell’s hair was red, white and blue. It’s always a different color for Sunday church service.
“The ladies of the church always want to know what color he has it this week and ask, ‘What does it say now?’” Kay Maxwell said.
The church’s rummage sale is the last event Maxwell will help promote at Cascade View Presbyterian Church. The couple plans to move to Aberdeen on June 19 and attend a church close to their new home.
The mohawk will also go, Maxwell said. He’ll shave it off after the rummage sale so he can start growing his hair out about four inches and style it for his 50th LaCrosse High School reunion next year.
“I’m going to comb it back the way I wore it in high school,” he said.
The Maxwells will be missed, Louise Clements, president of the Cascade View Presbyterian Church Women’s Association said.
“There’s going to be a hole in the church,” she said. “He’s one of most enthusiastic parishioners when it comes to getting involved.”
Amy Daybert: 425-339-3491; adaybert@heraldnet.com.
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