Pupils vie for honour of shaving principal’s beard

Pupils at Deception Bay North State School collected more than 18,000 containers over 14 weeks in a bid to win the honour of shaving principal Troy Barath’s beard.

Troy, who has sported a beard for the past four or five years, says he stopped trimming it in about June to give pupils something worth shaving.

He says while the school has a great track record of recycling paper, plastic containers and cans haven’t been on the radar.

“We’re really concerned about poppers, their straws and plastic, being so close to the Bay – and we have a saying `pick up a popper straw and save a turtle’,” Troy says.

School spirit

“It was a nice way to end the school year and get the kids to have a sense of school spirit and competition.”

To keep pupils motivated, there were weekly prizes of slushies for the class that collected the most containers each week, with the top gong of shaving Troy’s beard going to the class that collected the most across the 14-week competition.

All up, the school’s 350 pupils brought in 18,678 containers, which Troy says were taken to a recycling centre to be cashed in for $1867.80, which the school would use to fund a future project.

Grade 3/4A took the top gong, with 2698 containers, followed by Prep B with 1820, 2A with 1760, 1A (1193), 3B (1022) and Prep C (1007).

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