MATTHEW BURNETTE

Staff Writer

Aden Harris already had over a decade’s worth of experience cutting hair before enrolling in the recently opened Barber Academy at 301 Hillsboro Blvd in Manchester.

A fourth-generation barber from nearby Shelbyville, Harris’s great-grandfather was one of the first barbers in the town he grew up in, but it was in his father’s shop that he first realized he wanted to carry on the tradition.

“One day I was watching my dad take too long to do somebody’s hair, and I asked him why he didn’t just get rid of the bulk first,” Harris recalled. “He looked at me and said, ‘You act like you know what you’re doing,’ and I said ‘Well, I kind of do,’ so he let me finish the haircut for him.”

Harris was the first student in the new barber school but is one of several that are pursuing their certification in barbering.

“I enjoy making people happy,” he said. “I enjoy making people look better and building their confidence. The joy that I see people have after a haircut, that’s what makes me grind harder.”

The school, a campus extension of Love Beauty School which has been in Manchester for 20 years, offers students both experienced like Harris and completely new to the craft the opportunity to complete the 1500 hours necessary to receive a barber’s license.

It features a classroom area and a large dedicated section full of barber chairs where students hone their hair-cutting skills after the first eight weeks as well as a manicure and facial area.

“They actually teach you here,” explained Harris. “The things that I didn’t know or that I struggle with, they made sure I knew and got it down pat.”

The Barber Academy was started by Tonya Liles and Jerame Watkins, a generational barber like Harris, who brought the Barber Academy to life with the help of Michael Edwards, who put together all of the chairs, fixtures and other components in the school and the couple have a lot of gratitude for.

Liles has been at Love since 2008 and took over operations in 2022 when original owner Cristie Fults retired.

She says that they decided to open the school in order to fill a gap in the community.

“We really felt the community could use it,” she explained. “Yes, we have a beauty school, but we didn’t have a barber school. There are no other barber schools in our area that offer financial aid that are accredited or certified with the Higher Education Commission.”

The Barber Academy offers Pell grants, student loans, scholarships and payment plans which means most of the students do not have to pay anything while they are enrolled.

Watkins explained that the school is an extension of a promise he made to his mother, a hairstylist.

“I started cutting my own hair then and fell in love with it and had a passion for it,” he remembered. “My mom, she made me make a promise to her that I would finish school, and when I did finish school, I went on to get my instructor’s certification, so not only did I do that, but I went the extra mile and with Tonya’s help, we opened up the barber school.”

“I feel like God has led us to do this,” said Liles. “That’s how it came about: as a goal for Jerame and a need for the community to have a barber school.”

Watkins also noted that they want the Barber Academy to be a place where people can go to change their lives, much like he did when he met Liles back in 2021, something he says completely altered the course of his life for the better.

“The drive and want to and the care about changing who you thought you were into becoming who you need to be, that’s something that a lot of people can relate to,” he said. ”If they just had that place to go or the person to talk to or a way to change their living situation, change things they’re involved in and change who they are as a person, that’s the main gift.”

“We all need somebody to believe in us,” added Liles. “It doesn’t really matter where you’ve been or whether you have a past or not. One of our students had shared that he had a past and a background as well, but it’s not about where you’ve been, it’s about where you’re trying to go.”

“God’s just been good to us,” she added. “Sometimes you never know what plans He has for your life, but He’ll surprise you along the way as long as you keep pushing.”

With haircuts being $7 and a straight-razor shave costing $10, Liles hopes that the Barber Academy can offer great and affordable services to the community, especially to male clients who may not be comfortable getting their haircut at a beauty school.

“The students need the experience, so the more people that are willing to come in and let them practice, the better they are going to be,” she said.

She also wants the same to apply to men who may have the desire to cut hair but do not want to enroll in a beauty school.

“Same thing with students. If their desire is to be barber, we want to meet that and believe in them and help them get through school and build more than just a career,” Liles emphasized. “This is how we take care of our family, and so ideally, when they come here it’s not just something that they’re doing. They have a passion for it, and they’re going to ultimately use this to feed their kids.”

In addition to the typical services, Watkins says that a barber goes beyond “just cutting hair.”

“A lot of people come to escape their life, get advice therapy or whatever. You talk about everything when you’re in that chair,” he said. “It’s a way of life, so there’s a lot that goes into being a barber, and there’s a lot that your clients give you as much as inviting you into their lives and their problems, their passions, their worries, whatever it is. It becomes more than a client-barber relationship. Everybody becomes family.”

Those conversations are also something that Harris says he loves about barbering.

“I love the clients and getting to know them,” he said. “That’s really what a barber shop is. It’s more of a therapy session. People like haircuts but they come to talk. That’s what barber shops are known for.”

Watkins also shared that a simple haircut could change someone’s life.

“When you see it firsthand when someone comes in and sits down in your chair and they look down or they don’t talk to you at all, and it’s like pulling teeth to get a simple conversation with them, but as soon as you spin them around and they see what you’ve done, that’s what it’s all about.”

“You’re ultimately giving them confidence, so it’s more than just getting their haircut,” added Liles. “It’s how they feel about themselves, and that really does, for me and I think for everybody that we’ve serviced all these years, it flows over into their work life and their home life, so it’s more than just a cut.”

Watkins and Liles are also active in giving back to the community. Love has donated school supplies to children, and when a fire destroyed Garden Estates Apartments, they collected hygiene products that they donated to the Community Table to be dispersed to residents. They also offer back to school haircuts for students as well for free.

“We feel like God has been really good to us, and we want to give back,” said Liles.

Both Watkins and Liles say that they hope eventually Coffee County Central High School, which already has a cosmetology program, will add a barbering program as well so students can get a jumpstart on their skills.

The Barber Academy also teaches classes on subjects on the business side of things for students who hope to one day open their own shop.

As for Harris, he says he wants to return to the Barber Academy to complete an additional 300 hours in order to get his instructor’s certification and teach up and coming barbers there.

“I want to teach,” he said. “This is something I enjoy doing, so it’s not like I’m working. If you enjoy what you do, you don’t work, right?.”