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Paul Moore has been sporting a luscious, curly mullet for most of the past four years – and now that hairdo born out of just looking for something fun to do early in the pandemic has taken the San Ramon Valley High School alumnus to the brink of national glory.
Moore, a former climbing ranger who now works as a teacher in Mount Shasta, is one of the finalists in the adult division of the 2024 USA Mullet Championship. Online voting is open through this Wednesday (Aug. 21) in the charity competition that benefits housing for wounded military veterans.
“The mullet spawned during boredom during COVID,” Moore told DanvilleSanRamon by email. “It started as a joke, and having curly hair there is a long awkward phase before gravity does its thing … think poof ball for a while! My hair is pretty curly, and I love when people ask if it’s a perm. Nope, all natural baby!”
He added, “My best friend encouraged me to sign up for the contest and this is my first time. I am having a blast and it is for a good cause.”
A married father with two young sons (who both have mullets too), Moore recounts the fable of his cut in his contestant bio on the competition website, a tongue-in-cheek origin story entitled, “School’s Out for Summer: The Epic Saga of a Mountain Rescue Mullet”.
“Picture this: the year is 2020, and while the world is in turmoil, our ranger is out there, battling the elements, rescuing ill-prepared climbers, and charming crystal-loving hippie babes with his rugged charm and flowing locks. But it wasn’t all just daring rescues and flirtatious encounters; there were moments of true peril too,” Moore’s bio page states, later adding:
“One fateful night, under the cloak of darkness, our hero found himself suspended from a Blackhawk helicopter, his mullet catching the wind as he was lowered onto the treacherous slopes of Mt Shasta. It was a scene straight out of an action movie, only this time, the star of the show was the mullet.”
Although mainly a fun event for charity, Moore does face tough competition against some of the best “business in the front, party in the back” hairdos in the country in his quest for mullet immortality.
He has climbed above many of the 150-plus original entrants to survive the first two rounds to secure his position in the top 25 mullets battling it out in the third and final round.
The contest is organized by Jared Allen’s Homes for Wounded Warriors, a nationwide nonprofit that provides mortgage-free, accessible homes to combat-wounded U.S. military veterans, according to its mission statement. The organization was founded by retired National Football League player Allen, a former All-Pro defensive lineman who often wore a mullet under his helmet during his career.
As for Moore, his mullet no longer scales Mount Shasta every day but instead stands in front of young students in a classroom.
Moore said he made the switch to teaching a couple years ago after working for five years as a climbing ranger for the U.S. Forest Service on Mount Shasta. A Danville native whose mother still lives in the Shadow Hills neighborhood, Moore graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2004 and lived and worked in the East Bay and then Wyoming before settling in Mount Shasta in 2013 not long after hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.
He is teaching fifth grade math and middle school science this year at Golden Eagle Charter School in Mount Shasta. His wife Carli works as an emergency room nurse in Yreka, and their boys Luke and Hank – with straight blond mullets, unlike dad’s curly brown one – are 5 and 2, respectively.
Learn more about Moore’s mullet story and the rest of the 2024 USA Mullet Championship at mulletchamp.com.
