For the first time ever, Andover will be hosting a beard growing competition, despite the enormous societal pressure to “stay clean.” Though a select and outcasted few have held strong since November, the majority of the Andover populous has shaved since then. Youth from every mountainous quarter have been recruited to compete in the competition to see whose beard can grow most within one week of intense testosterone mongering. Some have doubted the legality of the recruited Post Graduates, citing a Massachusetts law outlawing the recruitment of “very post-pubescent students with especially speedy hair growth.” “It is clear how much more experienced the mountain PGs are,” said Monty Tan ’14. For the many prepubescent teens on campus, this maturity gap does not seem fair. In the pursuit of excess hair, people around campus have been participating in overly manly activities to increase their growth, like dropping the kids off at the pool with the door open and making beef jerky out of the tofu in the Paresky Commons salad bar. Day students have really been getting into their competitors’ heads with stories of manly trips to Planet Fitness and Jos. A. Bank. The school hosted preliminary rounds on day three of the competition to see the progress. Juniors seemed to be behind on hair growth, but rumor is that they shaved right before preliminaries just to make a bold, yet ill-fated, statement. One PG, Harry, won the preliminary competition without even knowing that it was going on. When asked to comment on his beard, he responded with “Oh this thing? I was just kind of born with it.” The beard growing competition is shaping up to be a good one with school-wide participation. The preliminary round, however, did reveal some startling statistics. Of the 40 finalists, only four of them were women. See A2 for six Letters to the Editor on the subject.
