Step inside the county’s oldest barber school, where dreams are shaped and cuts are free
A hum fills Bates Technical College’s barbershop on a late April morning. It rises to a crescendo and then falls to a whisper as student barbers pause their electric clippers to check their work.
In an adjacent classroom, students are working on mannequins. In the barbershop, aspiring barbers are working with actual customers, many attracted by the lure of a free haircut or shave.
Bates’ barber program, established in 1950, is the oldest in Pierce County. As hair styles have changed over the years, so have the barbers attending the school. If there’s a stereotypical student that’s attracted to barbering, it’s not discernible on this day. They are Black, brown and white, male and female. Some are barely old enough to shave while others are able to collect Social Security.
All are drawn, for their own reasons, to the barbershop where camaraderie reigns and barber chairs become confessionals.
Phoenix rising
Customers shouldn’t expect a quick in and out. Students cut hair with the attention of a surgeon, occasionally calling over an instructor for guidance.
Student Phoenix Shepard knew he wanted to be a barber at age 15. Now 18, the Steilacoom High School graduate is a few months shy of completing Bates’ barber program.
“The family, the conversations, the openness, the creativity that’s in the room,” Shepard rapidly offers when asked why he chose barbering.
The program, he said, has not only taught him how to cut hair but also about himself. He arrived arrogant and was “emotionally selfish,” he said. Learning how much he didn’t know has humbled him.
Now, his skills improve with every cut, he said.
“It’s like you are a walking billboard,” Shepard said of his clients. “I need to make sure that it’s gonna look good because there are people asking for a haircut or asking where you get your hair cut. That can be a positive or negative.”
Clients
The school’s clients come from all walks of life. Some are professionals on their lunch break or service members from Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Others are homeless men and women, pensioners on tight budgets and students.
“Anybody with hair,” is how program director Sheron Rogers describes the clients. “And if they don’t have hair, we do shaves, too.”
The cuts and shaves are always free. Tips are gladly accepted.
While appointments can be made, most customers walk in off the street.
Third career
“The man with the curly mustache,” is how one of Roy Blanchard’s fellow students describes him. His debonair mustache tops a long, graying beard.
Blanchard doesn’t mind the ribbing from his much-younger cohorts. Even at 55, he’s not the oldest student in his class.
“I think we both can benefit from each other,” he said. “I’ll share my experience, some of the things that I’ve gone through with these young classmates of mine.”
Barbering is a third career for Blanchard. After 27 years in the Air Force, the University Place resident started a second career in banking.
Then, his wife died.
“And in her loss, I really lost my direction,” he said. “Banking no longer interested me.”
One day, as he was getting his hair cut, he was discussing career options with his barber. The answer, he realized, was looking at him in the mirror.
“After I gave it some thought, I came down here and I enrolled at Bates College,” he said.
While most students in the barber program are just beginning to start their professional careers, Blanchard is not looking to be the next barber influencer on TikTok.
“I’m in a different time in my life than a lot of my classmates here,” he said. “My main focus is, outside of work, being able to enjoy my life as much as I possibly can. And I think this is a great career that will allow me to do that.”
He already has a chair lined up at a local barbershop. In most barbershops, barbers rent a chair and set their own hours. Like many of his younger classmates, Blanchard wants to be his own boss.
The program
Students take 21 classes including hair cutting, sterilization and accounting over four quarters to meet the state’s requirement of 1,000 hours of instruction, according to Rogers. There are about 36 students going through the program at any one time.
High school students can take the program and earn both their diploma and barber’s license at the same time. Others can earn a certificate or associate of arts degree along with their license, which is issued by the state following exams.
Rogers is a graduate of the program. He was also the first African American barber instructor hired in the school’s history, he said. He now owns a barbershop in Tacoma.
“I like the impact that I get to have, not only as an instructor, but as a barber myself,” he said.
His students have ranged in age from 16 to 63. They’re straight and gay, introverts and extroverts. The field remains dominated by men. While only one in five students are female, they often surpass male barbers monetarily, Rogers said.
Through his interactions with clients, Rogers maintains the passion for barbering he’s had since graduating from Bates in 2008.
“I like being able to change the course of someone’s day,” he said. “That may be the only positive interaction some people have, or the only control that they have in their life for that day.”
Military cuts
Jo Ramirez is a few years out of the Navy but still peppers his conversation with the occasional, “Yes, sir.” He’s had time to grow his hair out from the constraints of a military haircut. His dark tresses now flow onto his shoulders.
Ramirez said he was “bored for days” while serving on the USS Nimitz, an aircraft carrier. But it was on the ship — a virtual city of 6,000 residents “floating in one direction” — where he became interested in cutting hair.
“Everybody needs a haircut on the water, and the ship barber was not it,” he said.
A friend urged him to cut hair, off the books, for his fellow sailors.
“When I was out on the water, it just kind of gave me some type of sense (of purpose),” he recalled. “I was going through some hard times.”
Ramirez, 26, lives in Bremerton. He’s now in his second quarter at Bates, where he’s making his barber career legit. He hopes to be working in Bremerton soon where, he acknowledges, he’ll be giving a lot of military haircuts.
Her own boss
Luna Cable, 24, isn’t sure she’s going to be a barber, but she knows she’s going to own a barbershop. Soon.
Her grandmother owned a barbershop in Spanaway. After the older woman died, Cable’s parents offered her the shop.
“But they told me that it was with conditions,” she said. “They wanted me to at least know how to cut hair.”
Cable, who lives in Renton, works as a restaurant server and bartender. She’s not sure if she’s going to give that up. But she likes the idea of owning her own business.
“I’ve always been interested in business, but never really had the guts to approach it in school,” she said. Now, the self-described hands-on learner is getting an up-close education of the creative and business aspects of barbering.
Cable is attracted to the career’s flexibility.
“I think that’s something a lot of people in my generation is looking forward to — not feeling tied down, feeling like they have to do things the traditional way,” she said.
How to get a free haircut
What: Haircuts, shaves and facials given by student barbers.
Where: Bates Barber College, 1101 S. Yakima Ave., Tacoma. Enter at the Earnest S. Brazill Street and Yakima entrance.
Hours: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5 p.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Friday (The shop follows the college schedule for closures.)
Cost: Free, but tips are appreciated.
Appointments: Can be made but most customers walk in.
Information: batestech.edu/barber-shop/ 253-680-7248
This story was originally published April 28, 2024, 6:00 AM.
