PORT ANGELES — The hair thing began about two years ago. Teenager Liam Getzin let his grow. And grow. It got heavy on his neck.
It was February 2020 when his mother, Wendy Clark-Getzin, talked with another parent about the benefits of letting go of their children’s hair decisions.
Don’t sweat it; their hair is “an expression of teenage-hood,” she recalled.
“Liam looked like he walked out of the ’70s,” and soon needed help from his sister and his mom on how to manage long hair. Elastics. Combs. Detangling conditioner.
Then came the pandemic, along with additional inches of hair. Barbershops closed, and reopened again, and Wendy thought her son might grow tired of all that hair care and head for a barber.
Instead, the two found out about Wigs for Kids (Wigsforkids.org), an organization that provides wigs, free of charge, to children who have lost their hair while suffering health crises.
On Feb. 18, barber Beckie Tunstall of Clipper & Style in Port Angeles sectioned and cut 14 inches of Getzin’s hair in an after-hours appointment that ran more than 135 minutes. She then packaged up the tresses and sent them to Wigs for Kids in Westlake, Ohio.
“It feels liberating,” Getzin said.
The morning after, Getzin made two public appearances. A violinist since he was 4, he performed in the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra’s morning and evening concerts of Tchaikovsky, Francaix and Mozart at the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, his locks barely grazing his collar.
“I look back on myself,” said Getzin, 18, “and I ask myself how in the world did I carry that? It was so heavy.”
This was the first time Tunstall had ever done a Wigs for Kids cut. She has ample experience on the other end of this continuum, though.
At the Allure Academy cosmetology school in Port Angeles, Tunstall has styled wigs for women who have lost their hair to chemotherapy treatments. It is a joy, she said, to see such a woman behold her new look in the mirror.
Wendy first found Tunstall when she was at Allure, making the transition from managing Subway sandwich shops to styling and cutting hair.
“She’s good with teenagers. My daughter says she is the first person who can comb her long hair with no pain,” Wendy said.
“I was convinced Beckie could handle the prolonged hair donation process when I saw her with a woman needing a wig. She worked hard until the woman had new stylized hair. I saw a good heart in her.”
Getzin’s plan to donate his hair to Wigs for Kids became a kind of beacon of purpose through the pandemic, Wendy added.
“This would be a nice thing to do,” Getzin said.
“I feel like it is a contribution to my spiritual beliefs,” about which he didn’t elaborate.
Getzin, who participated in the Port Angeles Symphony’s Nico Snel Young Artist Competition in January, is a vocalist as well as a violinist; he said he prefers singing to playing.
After graduation this year, he plans to attend Edmonds Community College, and then onward to study the arts, especially music.
For now, he’ll enjoy the lightness of his short haircut.
“It feels nice,” he said, “to have the wind brush the back of my neck.”
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Jefferson County Senior Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladailynews.com.
Free of his long hair, violinist Liam Getzin of Port Angeles played in two Port Angeles Symphony concerts on Feb. 19. (Diane Urbani de la Paz/Peninsula Daily News)
