A middle school teacher vowed after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, that he would not shave his beard until Usama bin Laden was caught.

Gary Weddle kept his word Sunday evening.

“I spent my first five minutes crying and then I couldn’t get it off fast enough,” Weddle, 50, told The Wenatchee World.

Weddle, who lives in East Wenatchee and teaches in Ephrata, had wanted to cut his beard for years. The gray stringy growth actually made him look a bit like bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks who was killed by U.S. forces. . .