It wasn’t a close shave, yet he still won by a whisker.

Actually, a whole face full of them.

The Rhododendron Hair & Beard Contest — the Rhody Festival’s foremost face-off of follicle figuration — returns at
5:30 p.m. Friday, May 19 at the American Legion Hall on Water Street.

Let it now be known, however: The search must begin for a new heir apparent.

Carl Rabeler made it all but official Friday, via cellphone from the camper van he was driving somewhere along a New Mexico highway.

The reigning champion and holder of the title of “longest beard” will not be in town to defend his crown.

The reason isn’t a real chin-scratcher. Rabeler said he and his wife, Lisa, were on their way back to Port Townsend from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, but a swing through southern California will put them back in PT the week following the Rhody Fest.

“I’m not going to be back in time to defend my victory,” he said.

Carl Rabeler was an unexpected entrant in last year’s competition.

Lisa Rabeler recalled that organizers of the contest — which also includes categories of “best mustache,” “best braid,” and “longest hair — started combing the crowd for participants after coming up short of competitors.

“I was watching the bed races,” Carl Rabeler said, recalling where he was when the question came.

“I said, ‘I’ll sign up.’”

He didn’t expect to actually win anything, as Port Townsend has no dearth of thickly camouflaged chins.

“I was looking around when I signed up. It was just a lark. There were quite a few people who had much more impressive beards,” he said. “A couple people with really long beards were asked to participate, but they decided not to.”

Facing the challenge alone as the sole contestant, Rabeler was declared the winner.

“He won by default,” Lisa Rabeler recalled with a laugh.

She, too, had been tapped to compete in the contest, in one of the categories for women. (Divisions include “best style,” “longest hair,” and “best braid.”)

Gamely, she agreed. But her brush with success was short-lived as another person had the lock on the locks.

“A very lovely woman with very long braids beat me,” she said.

Carl Rabeler started growing a beard when he was a teenager.

“When you’re 15 and you have acne breaking out and you’re supposed to shave, it’s like, ‘Yeah. No.’”

“By the time I was 18 my beard was probably about 4 inches,” he recalled.

That was in the 1970s, with his hair going past his collar and not stopping to pause till it hit his shoulders. He’s since faced the full range of styles, from goatee to long beard. He said he only shaved it off completely once.

Lisa Rabeler noted that her husband’s beard now is longer than when he won the title.

Last Rhody Fest, he had a well-coiffed, short beard, she said.

Her husband agreed.

“If you’re judging it for any amount of length I would not have won,” he said.

And that last time he was follicle-free? When he shaved it all off?

“I got a divorce.”