ALBANY - Albany school district Superintendent Steve Guenther will have a new look when school begins today.
He got his head shaved Monday at the district's Back to School Night to fulfill a challenge he made to the students last year.
The students got to see Guenther eat his words and lose his hair.
Guenther challenged the students in December to collect one million pop can tabs for the Ronald McDonald House in Madison.
"We wanted students to collect something and we wanted it to be something they could visualize," he laughed. "I was dumb enough to open my mouth and say they wouldn't be able to collect them."
To make the challenge a little more interesting, Guenther said he would shave his head if the students collected one million tabs.
It didn't take Guenther too long come to the conclusion that the students were determined to see him shave his head.
"About a month into this I realized this was a bad decision," he said.
Not only did the students get involved, their parents and friends from other communities got involved. Businesses even collected their pop can tabs for the students.
"Word spread pretty quickly," Guenther said.
Within a few months, the students had met their goal and Guenther planned a meeting with some scissors and an electric razor.
Back to School Night is typically well attended by elementary school students and their parents, but Guenther said the interest in his haircut would bring even older students and their parents to the school to witness the event.
Denise Briggs, who cuts hair at a salon in Albany, was selected to do some of the cutting, but people were able to purchase tickets for a chance to run the electric razor through his hair.
"I had a few people who offered to use straight razors," he laughed, "but I told them 'That's OK.'"
The tabs will be recycled and the money raised will be applied to operating expenses at the Ronald McDonald House in Madison.
According to Lindsey Morehead, director of marketing and communication at Ronald McDonald House Charities in Madison, pop can tab collectors raised more than $10,750 for the Ronald McDonald House in Madison in 2008.
He got his head shaved Monday at the district's Back to School Night to fulfill a challenge he made to the students last year.
The students got to see Guenther eat his words and lose his hair.
Guenther challenged the students in December to collect one million pop can tabs for the Ronald McDonald House in Madison.
"We wanted students to collect something and we wanted it to be something they could visualize," he laughed. "I was dumb enough to open my mouth and say they wouldn't be able to collect them."
To make the challenge a little more interesting, Guenther said he would shave his head if the students collected one million tabs.
It didn't take Guenther too long come to the conclusion that the students were determined to see him shave his head.
"About a month into this I realized this was a bad decision," he said.
Not only did the students get involved, their parents and friends from other communities got involved. Businesses even collected their pop can tabs for the students.
"Word spread pretty quickly," Guenther said.
Within a few months, the students had met their goal and Guenther planned a meeting with some scissors and an electric razor.
Back to School Night is typically well attended by elementary school students and their parents, but Guenther said the interest in his haircut would bring even older students and their parents to the school to witness the event.
Denise Briggs, who cuts hair at a salon in Albany, was selected to do some of the cutting, but people were able to purchase tickets for a chance to run the electric razor through his hair.
"I had a few people who offered to use straight razors," he laughed, "but I told them 'That's OK.'"
The tabs will be recycled and the money raised will be applied to operating expenses at the Ronald McDonald House in Madison.
According to Lindsey Morehead, director of marketing and communication at Ronald McDonald House Charities in Madison, pop can tab collectors raised more than $10,750 for the Ronald McDonald House in Madison in 2008.