SEEING RED AGAIN
Hundreds attend downtown event
TROY, N. Y. » Over 230 red- haired people gathered Wednesday night at a local organization’s fifth annual meeting.
The League of Extraordinary Red Heads, which was founded by city resident Duncan Crary, held its fall celebration at Ryan’s Wake Public House.
“I was amazed at how many people showed up,” said Crary. “I spoke to groups of people who traveled up from New York City and a woman came from Connecticut, another woman drove up from New Jersey.”
There aren’t many redheaded events in the world.
“There’s a few redheaded festivals across the country. There’s one in Ohio and Chicago, but the point I’m getting at is there’s not that many,” said Crary. “[ Because] there aren’t that many redheads. Period. Only 1 to 2 percent of theworld population has red hair.”
Crary wasn’t surprised people traveled from a few hours away for the event.
“I’m not surprised that people would travel a couple hours to come here. I wouldn’t expected someone to travel more than a couple hours. But I do get requests from all over the country to form chapters of the League of Extraordinary Red Heads, which started here in Troy,” said Crary. “I’m working on that now, and what I hope is that we can have other chapters throughout the country, but that those chapters will then travel to Troy every year for this event. That would be cool.”
Crary said kids have been
coming to the event its inception, which he said is a really fun part of the entire event.
“Normally if you are a redheaded kid, you’re usually the only one in your class sometimes you are the only one in
your grade. It depends on how big your school is, so it’s really fun for the kids to meet other red- haired kids, but also just to be in an environment where they are a majority,” said Crary.
“... Some redhead kids get picked on pretty badly actually. With the South Park episode, the ‘ kick a ginger’ episode. I mean that got out of hand a couple years ago... I definitely know of red- haired kids getting picked on. It’s a frustrating thing to get picked on for because most people tend to blow it off, ‘ oh, it’s not a big deal.’”
Crary himself wasn’t picked on, but the Albany native mentioned how it was hard for him to do anything without being noticed as a redhead.
“Even like dancing at the school dance. ‘ Oh, there’s the redhead dancing,’” said Crary. “Everyone
is constantly commenting on you and your hair. You just stand out.”
The League of Extraordinary
Red Heads began in a bar as a joke, but now it’s turned into a very real thing.