Haircuts to the rescue Monday

A local beauty salon is cutting prices as well as hair on Monday.

La Conner Hair Design will donate proceeds between 12-6 p.m. to an old-fashioned barn-raising project benefiting a Montana family that lost its home in the Caribou fire that has ravaged the northwest corner of the state this month.

The Sept. 25 “Hair Cutting Day” will allow customers to set prices---basically “love offerings”-- toward a fund in support of Ian and Jocelyn Caswell, who as fate would have it were wed on the same day the blaze struck.

The Caswells are family friends of La Conner Hair Design stylist Laurie Crawford.

Laurie’s son-in-law is heading up the barn-raising, a structure that will provide living quarters for the Caswells and Ian’s mom while a new house is built.

The Caribou fire swept rapidly across Lincoln County, leaving in its wake charred trees, burned debris, and molten metal. Timber stands throughout the famed “Christmas Tree Capital of the World” were reduced to something akin to scorched toothpicks.

Many of the 11 homes and 30 outbuildings lost in the blaze had Amish owners, Laurie says.

It all happened in the blink of an eye.

“They were given 24 hours to evacuate,” says Laurie. “Then they (emergency response personnel) came back an hour and a half later and said they needed to go right away.”

Enough time remained to cut fence lines to allow the family’s horses and llamas to escape.

Vehicles, farm and ranch machinery, and storage structures were lost, however.

But all wasn’t lost.

In La Conner, goodwill has remained in plentiful supply.

Laurie, who moved here three years ago from the Eureka, MT. area, found in La Conner Hair Design owner Jeanie Hertz an eager and enthusiastic champion of the cause.

Jeanie’s idea for next Monday is to limit sessions to shampooing and haircuts as opposed to more time-consuming styling in order to serve as many fire fund donors as possible.

“All the haircuts,” says Jeanie, “will be on a donation basis.”

It will be money well spent.

The Caribou fire has displaced more than 400 people, including the Caswells, and burned in excess of 21,000 acres. The American Red Cross has opened a free service shelter at a Eureka church, so great are the needs of those living and working in the area.