Solomon Islands RPCV Tom Weisner becomes the first Aurora mayor in 100 years to lead City Hall from behind a beard.



Solomon Islands RPCV Tom Weisner becomes the first Aurora mayor in 100 years to lead City Hall from behind a beard.

99-year beardless mayor streak ends

By Ed Fanselow
The Beacon News
Aurora, Ill.
April 27, 2005

AURORA - The face of Aurora never looked so good.

And since 1906, it's never looked this hairy, either.

With his inauguration Tuesday night, Tom Weisner becomes the first Aurora mayor in 100 years to lead City Hall from behind a beard.

Two of Aurora's 20th Century mayors, James F. Harley from 1915 to 1918 and Lloyd Markel from 1948 to 1952, sported mustaches (Markel's was of the pencil-thin variety). But not since Mayor H.B. Douglas in 1906 has the man at the helm of Aurora city government worn a full beard.

In all, 26 of Aurora's 56 mayors - including Weisner - have favored a beard during their administrations, the vast majority of them during the late 1800s, when beards were in vogue more so than at any other time in American history.

Since then, only a few have dared to go unshaven.

Weisner's beard, meanwhile, traces its roots back to the late 1960s, when, as he himself once put it, the attitude amongst many young men was "the hairier, the merrier."

It took on bushier proportions in the early '80s while Weisner was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Solomon Islands but has been more well-coiffed over the past two decades during his tenure as a City Hall employee and over the course of the recently concluded mayoral campaign.

While Weisner's fortunes in that race would seem to portend a bright future for other would-be candidates with beards, the truth remains that they still have a lot of ground to make up.

The United States, for one, hasn't seen a bearded president since Benjamin Harrison in 1893, while the Catholic Church's last bearded pope was Innocent XII way back in 1699 - a beardless streak of more than 300 years.

When this story was posted in April 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:

The Peace Corps Library Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related stories in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can find hundreds of stories about what RPCVs with your same interests or from your Country of Service are doing today. If you have a web site, support the "Peace Corps Library" and link to it today.

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April 24, 2005: This Week's Top Stories PC says program in Uzbekistan is fully operational 23 Apr Business is booming for bi-lingual RPCV's law practice 22 Apr Phil Hardberger criticizes twin swap in San Antonio race 21 Apr Alejandro Toledo has managed to stay in power 21 Apr Dale A. Olsen wins Guggenheim fellowship for music 21 Apr Dr. William E. Hurwitz sentenced to 25 years in prison 21 Apr John and Karen Lewis build eco-tourist hotel in Costa Rica 21 Apr Federal panel recommends Global Health Corps 20 Apr Lena Medoyeff is a businessperson who makes clothes 20 Apr Forty-one in Congress sign PC funding letter 19 Apr James River Park manager Ralph White back to work 19 Apr Pat Waak tells Dems to keep eyes on the prize 18 Apr Al Kamen says First Fan Knows Baseball 18 Apr Broughton Coburn tells his tales of Nepal 13 Apr Maria Shriver talks about her father 12 Apr Bellamy says no big difference with non-RPCV director 11 Apr Abbey Brown faces women's issues in Bangladesh 10 Apr

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April 24, 2005: Special Events Jody Olsen speaks at Ivy College on May 6 RPCV Kent Island Family Weekend on May 6 - 8 Nepal RPCV film showing in Massachusetts on April 30 Gaddi Vasquez speaks in Berkeley on April 25 Cameroon RPCVs selling special Pagne Bush proclaims National Volunteer Week RPCVs: Post your stories or press releases here for inclusion next week.

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Friends of the Peace Corps 170,000 strong 170,000 is a very special number for the RPCV community - it's the number of Volunteers who have served in the Peace Corps since 1961. It's also a number that is very special to us because March is the first month since our founding in January, 2001 that our readership has exceeded 170,000. And while we know that not everyone who comes to this site is an RPCV, they are all "Friends of the Peace Corps." Thanks everybody for making PCOL your source of news for the Returned Volunteer community.

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