No Shave March has quickly become one of the most anticipated annual events at Elder.

Despite the fact that this is only that second year of what is sure to become a tradition, people have been excitedly anticipating this month for some time now, and people are already betting on who some of the top contenders for awards are. Although Elder may have lost some beard growing talent with last year’s senior class, we have some key prospects this year whose beards will be able to live up the precedent set last year.

One such furry faced frontrunner is Zach Beiersdorfer. The facial hair he has already grown is a pretty good indicator of where I think he may be by the end of the month. Four days in, he has a fuller beard than the majority of students at Elder could hope to grow within a month.

Another student who will be in contention for having the most facial hair is Nicholas Sebastian. He may not grow the most neat and well-kept beard, but he will definitely have a lot of hair. His neck beard is on an entirely new level that nobody else at Elder is going to be able to match, but his overall hair growth may be lacking, so it will be interesting to see how he turns out.

Trent Jones is a candidate who already has experience with facial hair. Over this past summer, for instance, the cross country team called Trent “chinstrap” for his distinctly Amish style beard, but the amount of hair he managed to grow was nothing to make fun of. I have no doubt that he will have one of the best beards in the school by the end of the month.

Another one of Elder’s elite beard growers is senior Matthew Schwallie, who is capable of amassing massive amounts of hair over fairly short periods of time. He is almost always rocking at least some facial hair because it is too much of a hassle to constantly stay clean shaven. He is easily going to have a full beard by the end of the month if he doesn’t shave.

Michael O’Conner is off to a solid start this month too. His beard is looking like it will be very full by the end of the month, easily ranking him as one of the top candidates for the best beard.

Kyle Trischler has a somewhat different approach to the month. He, instead of going for the bushiest beard award, is after the neatest and best trimmed beard award. He said he knows he won’t be able to grow more facial hair than some of his fierce competitors, but his goal is to be able to grow a better looking beard than any of them.

Although there are definitely some great beard growers that I missed with this article, I firmly believe that these students are going to have some of the best beards in the school.

There are also a couple key faculty members to look for this year. For instance, our favorite freshman, Mr. Quatman, may end up looking like a sophomore by the end of the month. He might not even be mistaken for a high school student anymore if he can grow it out well enough.

Another teacher who can grow some serious facial hair is Mr. Weinheimer. By the looks of it, it truly seems to me that he could rival legendary bearded faculty members such as Mr. Dickman, but we can’t know for sure. I really hope he’ll decide to keep growing it out for the rest of the month because I’m very curious to see what he can pull off.

Despite the fun that everyone is having growing out (or at least attempting to) their beards, we should all keep why we do this in mind. This is a month to commemorate Mark Klusman, a man who truly enjoyed and was passionate about everything he did. The sacrifices he made, service he did, and lives he has changed are all shining examples of the greatness that we lost along with him. This month serves as a reminder to all of us that we should make attempts to live like Mr. Klusman and make a great day.