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Only one more week of growing left! Our competition is winding down and I'm starting to pick up prizes from our sponsors! We've been talking about all the great businesses that are donating to the winners this year and here are the last few:

Keep It Local is a great concept that encourages local residents to shop with local businesses. The cards are only $10 and acts as a running coupon with every business involved. Tree & Leaf offers 15% off your purchase if you have a KIL card! This year KIL will be donating a free 2013 Keep It Local card to each category winner! We're glad to be a part of this great concept, and excited to have them as a sponsor!

No Regrets Tattoo / Ashley Smith: Ashley Smith has basically become the offical tattoo artist of the T&L staff! Tanner, myself, and John all have work by Ashley and like the name of the business, we have 'No Regrets.' Ashley will be donating a $60 tattoo to the contest! Swing by their shop on 16th and Gatewood in The Plaza. All four artists on staff are highly reccommended by T&L.

Shop Good is a great retail spot on 9th & Broadway in between Iguana Grill and Sara Sara Cupcake. A margin of profit from everything in their store goes toward a philanthropy or cause. The owners (Justin & Audrey) are amazing people with big hearts and a brand new little baby. They are quiet and humble, and always generous and hospitable. Make sure to visit them when you're doing Holiday shopping this year. Their store is open late and has a huge inventory of apparel, fashion/home accessories, prints, and art.

At the end of our beard competition we host a beer drinkin party where we award our victors from each category. It's always a fun social time and this year will be hosted at THE MULE on Saturday, November 3rd from 8-10pm. Saturdays are busy at The Mule, so give a good name to bearded folks and be polite and tip extremely well.

AN ONLINE VOTE WILL BEGIN AFTER THE FINAL PHOTOS ARE COLLECTED NEXT WEEK.

Yesterday I did a 3 color poster print flier for the event and delivered them to most of the sponsors. Each contestant in the competition will receive a print for their scrapbook or refrigerator. I'm very pleased with the outcome and look forward to the event. Anyone is welcome to join us, but again, we just ask you be patient with the staff. Thanks again to The Mule for actually wanting to host the party this year!

NOW, on to the beards!

Now that the beards are well developed, the gloves come off and our competition starts really kicking into high creative gear! The competition for 'People's Champ' starts to get a little tougher as the guys try to outdo each other with creative photography. Before we move on to this weeks (ridiculous) photos, I want to give a brief shout out to a few of the prize donating sponsors!

Collected Thread is an amazing boutique located in the Plaza District. Owned by our great friend Lindsay Zodrow, this hand-made shop is a great destination for unique gifts. They always have a large selection of prints, hand wovens, books, and a bunch of cool stuff for the dudes. Make sure to pit stop by this Friday during LIVE and pay her a visit. Lindsay donated some really cool shirts to last years competition and this year she said she'll be hooking up our winners with a few special gifts as well!

DNA Galleries is right next door to Collected Thread, and a staple of the Plaza. Their space is always booming with really cool shirts, jewelry, accessories, and amazing art. Tomorrow during LIVE they will be hosting local artist Sean Vali who's work never ceases to impress. Amanda (owner) and Dylan Bradway will be doing a live collaborative art piece right in front of the space tomorrow night so be sure so check it out!

GRP FLY is Tree & Leaf's brother from another mother. Vernon Deas is an amazing dude that you have to meet. Always full of charisma and always grinning ear to ear, Vernon runs Oklahoma City's premier streetwear brand. GRP FLY is always sponsoring great local music acts and has it's roots deep in the heart of Oklahoma Hip Hop. Check out his site to see some of the potential tees he'll be donating to this years competition! Thanks Vern! STREEEEEEEEETS!

Blue Seven has everything. Everytime I walk into their store I just wander around and look at all the cool stuff they have. Very eclectic and design focused, Blue Seven has something for everyone. Blue Seven's own Jacob Peregrin is in the competition this year sporting quite the beard! Be sure to check out their site, and follow along with their 6 month raw denim experiment 'Clean Start' at #B7CleanStart.

The Plaza District is basically T&L's second home. We like to think that we're just a Plaza satelite business. We love visiting the Plaza because we share a like-mindedness and a bunch of customers with the Plaza businesses. Make sure to check out LIVE each 2nd Friday and visit all the new businesses popping up in the area. This year the Plaza has a cool new "BE L'OK'AL" shirt that they'll be donating as a prize. Thanks Plaza!

This is only 5 of the 15 businesses donating prizes to the competition this year!! We'll be posting more info about our wonderful sponsors in the last few posts of our competition! NOW on to the beards....

This competition is getting really ugly, and I mean that in every literal sense of the word. However, we have been getting tweets from the ladies wanting to meet these bearded gents (for some reason...?) We do want to remind our audience that our final beard award ceremony will be hosted at THE MULE (date TBA.) Everyone is welcome to join us for the festivites, and who knows, maybe Tree & Leaf will be a matchmaker (or homewrecker.)

Greg Gilpin (who isn't competing in this years competion) sent us this little gem from Yahoo's Mansome series featuring Jack Passion. Upon further research, I found that their is an entire documentary called Mansome (which can be found on Netflix) that I highly recommend. Enjoy the video and click the jump for this weeks beard pics!

Steven Wilson of Beards.org was kind enough to oblige us with a little pep talk and forward to this weeks beard photos. Special thanks to him for doing this, make sure to check out his blog and Beard Team America! Thanks Steven!