They shaved a teacher’s beard — then spread Christmas cheer to Rock Hill cancer patient
Wearing a Christmas-colored button-down and a look of concentration, Liam Graham carefully gripped an electric razor.
The senior at Legion Collegiate Academy in Rock Hill stood in front of the entire student body and slowly glided the razor over someone else’s face. “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child blared over the gymnasium speakers. Graham’s classmates, when they weren’t laughing and dancing and mingling in the bleachers, were closely watching. His teachers were too.
One teacher, Lance Roberts, had a particular interest in what Graham did with that razor.
And for good reason.
Roberts was the one who was getting his beard shaved off.
“It was kinda weird,” Graham said and laughed. “It felt like it was snow coming off his face because it was white.”
Roberts is a teacher at Legion who grew a beard during “No-Shave November,” a month-long campaign during which participants don’t shave their faces to raise awareness and funding for cancer research. And during that month — as his face harried with an almost-Santa-like white and gray beard — Roberts and Legion students and teachers donated money to a fund that would later be given to someone among them affected by cancer.
That day of giving? Friday morning.
That someone? A Rock Hill resident and 36-year-old single mother, Latressy Barber.
And that final amount? $2,803.
“When he said it, I said, ‘Let me wake up, and we can do it again,” Barber said on Friday. “It’s a blessing.”
As tears welled in her eyes, Barber told reporters that she was going to use the money to help pay her medical bills, as well as for each of her five kids’ Christmas presents. She was diagnosed with stage IV colorectal cancer in May that later spread to her lungs and liver, she said, and at one point her condition put her in a wheelchair, unable to walk.
“It was heart-melting,” she said, searching for more words to describe how she felt. “I’m still speechless! I can’t even talk, I’m sorry.”
Roberts was inspired to spearhead this event after doing something similar decades before, back when he shaved his head and gathered donations to help a child in the Chester County School District battling leukemia.
He had a plan of solid incentives: The class that donated the most money earned a pizza party. And the top-five individual donors — including Graham, who donated using money he earned from hanging Christmas lights in neighborhoods across Fort Mill — got the chance to shave Roberts’ face in front of the school’s 400 students during the morning assembly.
“I love teaching,” Roberts said. “I love the kids. And this place right here is special.”
In a half-year battling her cancer and the depression and darkness that arrived with it, Barber said Friday was a bright light. After the amount of money Barber would receive was unveiled, Legion students held up pieces of paper showing the names of people who are going through cancer. One read “Zi-John.” Another read “Wade Hampton” and “Tish Simpson.”
And after that, principal TK Kennedy and Roberts and Barber posed for a picture. The Legion students gathered in the background. They were behind Barber — just like they were all November. Just like they were on Friday.
Just like they’ll be from now on.
“I just feel like she’s a part of Legion now,” Roberts said. “I just feel like my family is going to become a part of her life, as well as the Legion family.”
How to donate
Contact lroberts@legionlancers.org for more information on how to donate to Legion’s cause.
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