“Lori’s Locks will assist women in the local community to look and feel beautiful and maintain a sense of dignity and normalcy in their lives as they struggle through the loss of hair which can be a major side-effect from many medical conditions. This will be accomplished through providing wigs and partnerships with beauty salons.”

Lori Thyr, right, was 50 when she died Dec. 27, 2012. She lived in Corona and worked at company called VIP Services that helped people with disabilities find jobs. She was a part of Slick Chicks and died of a rare case of leukemia.

Corona resident Lori Thyr, 50, wanted her tombstone to have three simple words: “She was nice.”

“That’s it?” Thyr’s best friend Sandi Gordon, 56, remembered asking.

Three years ago when the businesswoman-networking group Slick Chicks began, Thyr, a member, suggested beginning a charitable venture in order to bring purpose to their monthly meetings.

The small group agreed to purchase wigs for local women going through chemotherapy.

Thyr was later diagnosed with cancer and she also lost her hair during the ensuing chemotherapy.

Two bouts with a rare form of leukemia, though, did not take away Thyr’s positive attitude, Gordon said. The group, which had grown in those three years to include 60 women, unanimously agreed in August to name their charity “Lori’s Locks,” after Thyr.

Recently, Gordon has been mulling over her friend’s desire to be known as a nice person, especially with Thyr’s death Dec. 27.

Her goal for Lori’s Locks is to continue that legacy.

“A few of my friends that have had cancer said the No. 1 devastating thing about cancer, other than obviously the unknown, was losing their hair,” Gordon said.

Gordon’s Corona-based group Slick Chicks gets connected with cancer victims through word-of-mouth and through the Foundation for Community and Family Health in Corona. So far, they have purchased wigs, costing between $50 and $400 each, for six women.

It is gratifying, Gordon said, to sit with a woman in a salon and see her life change as she puts on that wig.

“We can ease the burden of what they’re going through,” said Slick Chicks president Shelly Harrison, a Riverside resident.

When it came time for Lori to lose her blond hair, she refused to let her networking group purchase her wig.

“She cared more about other people,” Gordon said. “She just never, ever felt sorry for herself.”

On Thursday, flowers weren’t very present at Thyr’s funeral. Instead, her friends and family asked people to bring donations for Lori’s Locks.

“It just shows how Lori’s family felt about our commitment to building this idea of Lori’s Locks,” Harrison said. “People are going to be able to identify with making a donation in her honor.”

ARTICLE BY AMANDA WARNER
CORRESPONDENT
news@pe.com
Published: January, 7 2012