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PORTLAND, Ore. — Almost every day, someone makes a comment about Nic Mahoskey’s beard.
In fact, his facial hair is so impressive that the Ogden resident won a gold medal at the World Beard and Mustache Championships in Portland on Oct. 25. Mohoskey took first place in the full-beard, Verdi-style category.
“There was just a facial hair camaraderie,” he said. “Everyone got along. I met people from all over the place, got several phone numbers to keep in contact with people. Everybody was just in good spirits and awesome to talk to.”
He started growing his beard exactly one year before the championships, after he quit his job and then opened his own business as a general contractor. When he had about six months of growth, a friend sent him a link to the competition. Mahoskey said he immediately committed to compete.
“I figured it would be a good one year anniversary for my beard to go win a gold medal in Portland,” he said.
For the competition, he cut his beard down from about 8 inches to 4 to qualify for the Verdi category, which he thought he had a better chance of winning. The Verdi-style beard is named after the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, who had a carefully styled beard.
Almost everyone in the category wears a three-piece suit and top hat to go along with their curled mustache and trimmed beard, Mahoskey said.
“For the competition I used just hairspray, a blow dryer and a lot of time,” he said. “It took about an hour and a half to get it completely done. It was intense, but I didn’t have a single hair out of place, which is cool.”
About 300 people from nine countries and 29 states participated in the championships, according to The Oregonian. There were 18 subcategories in total, with more than 30 people competing in the Verdi category.
This was Mahoskey’s first beard-related competition, but he certainly doesn’t intend it to be his last.
“I’m going to go to as many competitions as I can now — just local ones, national ones, worldwide ones. I’ll do as many as I can. It was that much fun,” he said.
