Courtney Crowder

ccrowder@dmreg.com

Jackson Johnston used to have long, shaggy blond hair with side-sweeping bangs. Think: Justin Bieber before the tattoos.

But on Sunday, the 11-year-old buzzed his coiffure, right down to the scalp.

The haircut was difficult for Jackson, said his mother, Amber Johnston. The kid “loved his bangs.” As she moved methodically over his dome, Jackson held the already chopped hair scraps in his hands. But even as he mourned his mane, he smiled, knowing this trim was for a greater good: Jackson was shaving his head to support his beloved grandfather, Papa Rick, who had recently lost his hair to Mantle cell lymphoma.

Monday, Jackson went to Pekin Middle School in southeast Iowa and was met with taunts and mean remarks: “Hey Baldy!” “You look like a cancer patient.” “Why would you want a cancer patient’s haircut?” After finding out about the comments, Johnston called Principal Tim Hadley.

That’s when Hadley got a wild hair. He could discipline those who had made the cracks, throw the student handbook at them, or he could do something entirely unexpected.

“We take the issue of bullying seriously,” Hadley said, “but I thought if you believe in something, you have to find a way to stand up and literally show your support. So I was lying in bed and I thought maybe I will get a hold of his mom and ask her to send those clippers in.”

As he fired off a text to Jackson’s mom requesting the clippers, he knew what he was going to do: Hadley would hold a school assembly and ask Jackson to shave his head.

More than hair

Around Thanksgiving, the Johnston family discovered Papa Rick — whose non-family name is Rick Wilkerson — had incurable Mantle cell lymphoma. A cancer of the blood and lymph nodes, Mantle cell lymphoma normally affects older white men, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Amber Johnston remembers the doctor telling her that the incurable disease will eventually take Wilkerson’s life; the question is when. Soon after the diagnosis, Wilkerson started on an eight-month course of treatment that includes intensive chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant.

Jackson and his grandfather are “extremely close,” Johnston said. They could watch football together “for days” and Papa Rick loved teaching his grandson the finer points of golf.

“Papa Rick is Jackson’s role model, his idol,” Johnston said.

As a sixth-grader at the rural Jefferson County school, Jackson is aware of the severity of what’s going on with his grandfather, his mother said. A shy, quiet kid, he’s tried to stay positive, dutifully lending a hand with his two younger brothers when his mother helps her dad through treatments.

On Christmas Eve, after a particularly difficult round of chemotherapy, Wilkerson had a reaction that sent him to the hospital. The family spent Christmas on the oncology floor, encircling their patriarch’s bed.

Throughout the family's monthslong tribulation, hair became a topic of conversation. Wilkerson had reiterated over and over that he was especially nervous for chemotherapy because his locks would fall out.

My dad “thought it would be an outward sign that he had cancer and that everyone he saw would be thinking, ‘Poor Rick,’ and he was just dreading that,” she said.

Last weekend, Jackson declared his desire to shave his head, an idea Johnston thinks had been percolating for a while given Wilkerson’s worries. So out came the clippers and off came the hair.

The family went to visit Wilkerson later that day and when Jackson took off his winter hat, revealing his bald head, a light and a joy that she hadn’t seen since his diagnosis washed over her father’s face, Johnston said.

“Jackson shaving his head for Papa was letting him know that, 'I can’t do much to help you, Papa, I am only 11, but you won’t be alone,'” she said.

More than by-the-book

When Hadley hung up with Johnston on Monday night, he was upset. A student at his school had gone home feeling dejected, but, more than that, Hadley was flooded with memories of cancer in his life.

“My mother had thyroid cancer when I was in high school and it was incredibly difficult to watch and process and I was older than Jackson at the time,” he said. “She survived that battle, but my mother-in-law is currently struggling with uterine cancer and I had a grandpa that lost his battle with cancer. I know no one wants to fight this alone.”

Hadley said he realized there was a by-the-book way to handle this: Simply follow the well-laid-out disciplinary process. But he didn’t think the kids necessarily meant what they said with malice. They are all in middle school, and “when kids do something extreme at that age, they often get extreme reactions.”

More importantly, he said, he “wanted to show and model what it looks like to support, really support, another person.”

“I thought I could have a one-time conversation with a couple of kids or I could impact a generation,” he said. “I think a leader is someone who knows, someone who goes and someone who shows, and I needed to show the way.”

So at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Hadley gathered the entire middle school and let Jackson shave his head. The sixth-grade classmates hooted and hollered. Someone in the crowd even screamed out, “Let’s go, Jackson!”

More than classmates

Hadley and the staff talk a lot about their school community being a family, he said. He likes to think they cultivate a culture of respect year-round, but never was that so clear as it was Tuesday, Hadley said.

Kids from every grade were not only offering Jackson words of support or high-fives, but they were sharing their own struggles with cancer or other difficulties, he said.

“Some of the kids who said something Monday found out that it upset Jackson through this event and apologized,” Hadley said. “I never addressed any of them individually, they chose to apologize.”

The entire experience has boosted Papa Rick’s spirits “so much,” Johnston said, and the family has been overwhelmed with supportive texts and calls. An elderly woman with cancer saw the story and told Jackson she wasn’t going to wear her wig anymore. A third-grader shaved off his hair. Now there's a club of bald heads — and supportive friends — walking around the greater Pekin area.

And even though his ears are definitely colder, Hadley said his heart has never felt warmer.

“One of the last things I told the kids at the assembly was you never know what someone else is going through,” he said. “What they have may look so perfect on Facebook and Instagram, but inside they could be broken, so before you make a comment and pass that judgment, stop and think about what might be behind the obvious.”