Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Commitment to cure hazardous to hair
Chrome domes benefit cancer kids
Phil Ralston has been shaving his head in McMullan’s Irish Pub every year since 2008. But Saturday afternoon, he hit a new milestone.
Ralston, 54, was knighted with a real sword before having his head shaved for the 10th time in as many years as part of St. Baldrick’s Shave for the Cure.
With this year’s funds, Ralston is the No. 1 fundraiser in Las Vegas for Shave for the Cure. As an individual, Ralston has raised $175,000 in his years of shaving.
“It’s not just me and it’s not just him,” Ralston said, referring to his friend Windom Kinsey, whose daughter’s diagnosis of leukemia 11 years ago was his impetus to join the St. Baldrick’s event. “We’ve got a team of people and we raise a lot of money,” he said.
Kinsey’s daughter Claire is 21, and her cancer is in remission; she attends college in Georgia.
St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a nonprofit organization raising money to fund childhood cancer research. At Shave for the Cure, people raise money to shave their heads in solidarity with cancer patients, many of whom lose hair during chemotherapy.
Lynn McMullan and her husband, Brian have hosted Shave for the Cure in their eponymous pub since 2007, raking in nearly $3.4 million for St. Baldrick’s.
The cause is near and dear to the McMullans, who lost their 2½-yearold daughter Kyra to cancer in 1996.
“Pediatric cancer needs a bigger voice than it currently has,” Lynn said, pointing to statistics showing that only 4 percent of federal funding for cancer research is dedicated to studying childhood cancer.
Shave for the Cure at McMullan’s began at 11 a.m. Saturday and ended at 2 a.m. Sunday. McMullan said a head is shaved approximately every 15 minutes, with around 400 to 450 bald heads emerging from the pub each year.
Clark County Fire Department firefighters were at the event Saturday giving children tours of a fire engine while other attendees drank beer and watched locks being shorn from heads.
“It’s out of control, man,” Ralston said with a laugh as he gazed at the crowd outside the pub. “It’s so crazy.”
Lynn McMullan echoed that sentiment.
“It’s a really happy, fun day,” she said. “It’s mostly because people are doing something bigger than themselves.”