Barbershop offers a close shave
By Ashley Karras
Staff Writer
On the bottom floor of the Taggart Student Center, there is a room unlike any other on campus. A place where hair snippings blanket the floor and people often come out looking better than when they came in.
The TSC barbershop and salon has been in operation ever since the TSC was built.
It has been in its present location between Zion’s Bank and the Bookstore since 1964.
This convenient location may be the reason many people come in, as well as the reason customers like Mel Larsen keep coming back – even years after they have left campus.
As a retired university administrator, he remains a loyal customer to the TSC barbershop after seven years of retirement. Larsen said he has been coming to get his hair trimmed for the past 30 years.
Gerhard Stracke, another long-time customer, said he started getting his hair cut at the TSC barbershop when he was a student at USU because of his association with former owner Dick Swanston.
The Cache Valley resident is now a firefighter at Hill Air Force Base, but says he continues to come back to campus to get a trim whenever he needs one.
“They do a good job; that’s why I come back,” Stracke said. “This barbershop still has the old barbershop feel.”
Charles Bentley, who is a doctorate student in psychology at USU, agrees. He said, aside from being a convenient place to get his hair cut, he enjoys the “old-fashioned feel,” which puts him at ease better than going to a fancy salon.
The three stylists, who combined, have 40 years of experience, say they see about 20 customers a day. Some of those customers are students like Rob Erikson who stop in after class.
“I just got out of class and needed a haircut,” said Erikson, a freshman in hisitory who was visiting the TSC barbershop for the first time.
The barbershop staff says they see an equal amount of students and faculty in their chairs.
Under its former management, the barbershop’s clientele was about 95 percent male. Carla Hanks, who leases the barbershop, said she has tried to change that ratio by adding more services, such as hair coloring and highlights.
She said the male-to-female ratio is about four-to-one now.
Hiram Anderson, building maintenance manager, can often be found in the barbershop, but not always in the barber’s chair.
“This is one of the places I come to hang out,” Anderson said.
He said the smiling faces are part of the reason he has been coming here for the past 15 years, along with the maintenance the shop may need.
“These girls are just so funny about what they want done,” Anderson said.
Anderson is much like the others who find themselves wandering into the barbershop to get away from the world.
“Some of the students come in to do their homework or to relax,” Hanks said.
“We have a lot of people come in that don’t even go to school here because the price is right,” said Cammie Toone, who has been cutting hair for 12 years and at the TSC for the past nine months.
Toone calls the barbershop the “look-good, feel-better place.” She said she enjoys the atmosphere of being on a college campus.
“I like the association with the kids. It makes me feel young,” Toone said.
“We keep them looking young,” Toone said, “and they keep us feeling young.”
-ashleykarras@cc.usu.edu