Now that the dust has settled from yet another epic chin-thicket competition this year, it is once again time to give out the Cmar Beard Awards for 2011!

In the end, we raised an amazing $5,267.46, which eclipsed our optimistic goal of $5,000, and also welcomed several new participants into the fold. As tends to happen every year, there was a large influx of donations on the final day, leading to an exciting finish. When midnight rolled around, it turned out that yours truly was sitting in the number one spot, and so founder Bob declared me the winner! However, it turns out that there was a delay in a final hefty contribution to last year's winner, Pete DiLillo, so in the early morning hours of December 1 he accrued the most funds of all of us, and pushed us over the top in making our goal! I imagine his expression the next day to be something like he showed us with his Day 28 pic:

In the end, the true winners of this follicular competition were all of us who participated. It was an entertaining month for an excellent cause, and seeing us hit our donation goal was an awesome thing. Bob has posted two recaps looking back on the experience, and as the HoNoToGroABeMo Crackling Virility Hedge Champion for 2011, I add my own humble thanks to all who donated.

That noted, it is time to bestow the Awards! As with last year's awards, these have nothing to do with any donations received, and everything to do with the glorious pictography of lush face-manes:

• Best Beard Photo: This year saw a new bar raised for photographic excellence and composition, but there was only one picture the entire month that forced me to laugh out loud when I saw it. Additionally, it demonstrates in a very obvious way the principle of How Not To Grow A Beard. As such, the clear winner of the best photo this year is Kris Johnson for his Day 30 entry:



• Man Most Exemplifying How Not To Grow A Beard: In prior years, this has been a rather easy category to judge, but that turns out not to be the case. Prior hands-down winner Jeff Greiner's jaw-thicket grew in rather thicker this year - perhaps practice does train a beard? - leaving the field a bit more open. After some deliberation, it was clear that newcomer Frederick Hurley showed us all how not growing a beard is done. Or not done, as the case might be, as shown in his final image:



• Best Time Lapse Photo Series: Creative photo composition is the order of the day in this competition, but this year only one person gave us uniformly consistent poses to show his mandibular sprouts from day to day. That man is newcomer Andrew Rothman! (Click through to view the slideshow.)
• Man Most Exemplifying How To Grow A Beard: As this competition broadens in terms of participants, we are adding some to the fold who are able to muster up incredibly dense facial carpets. This year, the mysterious Beard A. Nonymous blew us all away with his jungle-like final jaw result. Seriously, dude, that is vastly impressive:



• Best Use Of Non-Facially Generated Props: The ante was certainly upped in this category, but Pete DiLillo once again takes the prize for his colorful use all manner of headgear and weaponry. (click through for the slideshow)



• Daily Commitment To The Task: November is a busy month, and few find the time and the stamina to start on Day 1 and produce a post every day for all 30 days. Our founder, Bob, led the pack in this regard as he does each year, and finds himself co-accepting this award with Jeff Greiner, Jim Van Verth, and myself for 2011. Strong work, gentlemen!
• Best-Spun Beardy Yarns: Every participant strives to put down some good words with their hairy pictographs. This year saw a range of pithy comments, beard quotes, facial hair history, and inspirational tales, to name but a few. However, Jim Van Verth pulled out the clear and consistent win. He made every picture a clue to a certain board game or digital game, and then followed each up the next day with some fascinating history and insight into the game in question. Congratulations to Jim for spinning some beardy yarns with a gaming bent!
• Most Intriguing Contest In Follicular Bribery: Along with our mandibular shrubbery, anew phenomenon grew forth during this year's contest, namely that several participants devised their own personal contests to bribe potential donors their way. Of all of these, Jeff Greiner's was clearly the best. Not only did it require the most work, but it was a meta-contest that involved bribing all of us participants with Manly Points to bring our A-game and increase participation and donations. Excellent work, Jeff! Be sure to check out how the points played out.

Congratulations to all of the winners! To all the participants, it was a pleasure joining you once again in this endeavor, and to give recognition where recognition is due. To everyone else, I’ll merely note that only 314 days remain until HoNoToGroABeMo 2012, and this whole mad affair will start up again.

As the current, reigning, and defending HoNoToGroABeMo Crackling Virility Hedge Champion - even under contested circumstances from the #1 Contender to the Title, Pete - I think it only appropriate to provide some parting beardly thoughts from WWE professional wrestler and current (at the time of this posting) World Heavyweight Champion Bryan Danielson:

(This is crossposted with minor editing from my column at The Secret Lair. The original can be found here.)