Donny Killian (second from left) and Sandy Goodman (middle) with Team Rip Curl USA teammates at the Movember gala party in Hollywood. (Shotgun Spratling)

But once a year, the moustache has its shining moment. One day a year, the moustache is king.

In Los Angeles, that day occurred on Dec. 3, 2010.

At the Avalon nightclub in Hollywood, the Movember gala party celebrated the month-long challenge for men to “change their appearance and the face of men’s health by growing a moustache.”

Starting clean-shaven on Nov. 1, men are urged to grow a moustache for 30 days to raise awareness and funds for prostate and testicular cancer.

The moustache becomes the equivalent of breast cancer’s pink ribbon.

“We say we wear our ribbons on our face,” 34-year-old Bubba Nicholson said.

Whenever someone asks about the furry bush growing beneath a man’s nose, a conversation about men’s health is launched.

“The whole month everyone’s asking you why you have that dirty moustache, and you say ‘to raise money for cancer.’ That’s my favorite part,” said Ron Hopkins, one of the estimated 1,200 Los Angeles gala party attendees.

Hopkins, sporting a thick, black handlebar moustache, wore purple and black tights with a black headband in replica of Ben Stiller’s "Dodgeball" character White Goodman. Like the majority of attendees, Hopkins came in costume hoping to win one of the contests that take place at each of the gala parties worldwide.

Awards, such as the “Best Mo in Character,” “Miss Movember” and “The Ultimate Mo,”  are given out to the “Mo Bros” and “Mo Sistas” that attend the month-long fundraising campaign's culminating event.

Twenty-seven year old Troy Rundle won the top honor as Los Angeles’ “Man of Movember.” After attending the Las Vegas gala party last year, Rundle said he spent the entire drive back to his hometown of Phoenix contemplating a costume that would win an award.

A natural redhead, Rundle bleached his hair and his moustache. He shaved the dome of his head, leaving blonde locks resting on the red and yellow boas wrapped around his neck.

In his red-and-yellow striped, elastic pants, Rundle took to the stage. He leaned his body forward and put his hand to his ear imploring the crowd to make noise. With the audience roaring, Rundle grabbed the collar of the red “Hulkamania” shirt he was wearing. He ripped the shirt in two tearing it away from his body before flexing for the delighted crowd.

Besides Hulk Hogan, costumes ranged from a Confederate colonel to Mahatma Gandhi to Gene Simmons and Mr. T. There were also a slew of lumberjacks, pirates and various TV and movie characters from Tom Selleck's career.

“It’s a great time for Mo Bros and Mo Sistas to come out and celebrate the completion of a serious but fun event,” Nicholson said.

Nicholson first got involved with Movember in 2007 after a rugby teammate was stricken with prostate cancer. Nicholson and the rest of the team were shocked they had never even discussed the disease that strikes 1 in 6 men.

“It blew our minds that we were willing to talk about everything in the locker room…everything but our health – the most important thing.”

Originally from Canada, Nicholson moved to Los Angeles to expand his role with promoting men’s health. He is now working in the group's Los Angeles office fielding questions and listening to the stories of cancer survivors.

“In our office, it doesn’t matter if it’s 10 at night, we race to pick up the phone,” Nicholson said. “We get to talk to some amazing people and just hearing that conversations about men’s health are happening is awesome.”

Like Nicholson, Donny Killian is a former athlete who realized he was ignorant about his own health and needed to change. The former USC men’s volleyball player is captain of Team Rip Curl USA, Movember’s second-leading fundraising team in the United States.

The team raised nearly $110,000 this year.

“The dollar amounts are important, but the reality is that every dollar equates to a conversation [about men’s health],” Killian said. “The more conversations people have, the better the globe and the country’s going to be.”

As of now, early detection is the top method of prevention, but men are often squeamish about having a prostate exam, or even discussing the possibility of getting one.

“We’re starting from a base of basically nothing,” Sandy Goodman, Killian’s Rip Curl USA teammate and the top fund-raiser in North America ($53,716), said. “Guys are pretty ignorant and don’t want to talk about it.”

Through moustaches, Movember is not only raising money but also attacking the stigma associated with discussing men’s health.

“The campaign has created a community of safety for guys to be able to talk about health, to remind us it’s important to get detected early,” Killian said.

Movember started as a joke amongst Australian-native Adam Garone and a few buddies in 2003.

“We were sitting around drinking beer and we said ‘whatever happened to the moustache?’" Garone said to the Los Angeles Mo Bros and Mo Sistas. “We need to bring it back.”

Garone, now Movember’s CEO and North American Operations Director, said they recruited 30 friends to grow a moustache in November for no particular reason but to “annoy our girlfriends and our bosses…and because it’s awesome.”

After the friends’ month-long pact successfully created bountiful discussion, Garone said he thought they needed to put the success of the event toward a good cause.

Inspired by the breast cancer awareness created by the pink ribbon campaign, Garone and his friends decided to focus the positive energy of the moustache toward men’s health and prostate cancer awareness.

Starting in 2004, Movember became a fundraising campaign. Garone and 450 other Australians raised $55,000. From there, the campaign has expanded exponentially.

This year, nearly 450,000 men and women in 10 countries registered through the Movember website and raised about $70 million, which will fund prostate cancer research and promote health awareness.

Everyone involved hopes the event will continue to expand. Several attendees see potential avenues for expansion. One common suggestion was getting professional sports leagues involved.

“We see the NFL wearing pink [in October for breast cancer awareness],” Goodman said. “It would be nice if they wore blue or brown or something to signify Movember and prostate cancer awareness in the month of November.”

“We hope that it becomes a preeminent men’s health charity in the U.S.,” said Killian.

Check out some of the top photos from the Movember gala party below, and to see more visit Neon Tommy's Flickr account.

To reach Shotgun Spratling, click here, or follow him on Twitter @BlueWorkhorse.

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