Dave Tyler, a graduate of the Winston-Salem Barber School and Lloyd Howard’s partner, finishes junior Bryan Dobrovolski’s haircut; Photo by Tiffany Needham/Old Gold and Black.

Our Barber Shop
By Jamie Dean
Old Gold and Black Reporter

It has often been observed that students attending the university can survive comfortably through the duration of their college life without ever stepping a foot off campus. Every imaginable amenity is provided for them by the university within a few feet of student residences. There is a grocer, a bank, a post office, and, perhaps one of the university’s best kept secrets, there is even a hometown barbershop.

Located downstairs in Taylor House, the university barbershop has been lowering the ears of students, staff and other area clientele since 1961. The shop is currently owned by Lloyd Howard.

Howard came to the university to work directly out of school from the Winston-Salem Barber School downtown and, in 1982, he completely bought out the barbershop from its original owner.

Though he has had varying numbers of employees throughout the years, Howard currently employs Dave Tyler as his only partner. Tyler, another graduate of the Winston-Salem Barber School, has spent the past two years of his five-year barber career at the university.

Both Howard and Tyler stay consistently busy during the school year. “We’re pretty much slammed all the time,” Howardsaid about his flow of business. “We are especially busy right before holidays and other special occasions like football games or formals,” he adds. As Tyler points out, summertime is about the only time when there is even a slight lull in business.

The barbershop draws from a wide range of patrons, including university President Thomas K. Hearn Jr. and Robert Walsh, the dean of the School of Law. Local non-university residents also make up a large portion of the barber shop’s customer base.

Though most customers are males, Howard says that they do cut the hair of a few ladies as well. “Girls always want to go to a ‘beauty shop,’” he said. “They are scared off by the word ‘barber.’” Howard believes he understands this phenomenon, though, and identifies with his female non-patrons, at least in part, by admitting that he and most other males have a similar wariness towards establishments with the words “beauty shop” in their titles.

Haircuts at the barbershop are only $13, and the shop can do highlights and coloring as well.

Interestingly, the barbershop is one of the few campus businesses that does not yet accept Deacon Dollars. Howard’s said the idea has been kicked around several times before but he still has no concrete plans for taking Deacon Dollars in the near future.
“Usually when students find out we don’t take Deacon Dollars they just leave, get money, and come back,” Howard said. “It’s hard to say if accepting them would really boost business or not.”

All in all, Howard and Tyler seem to be a pretty satisfied team. Neither has anything bad to say of the other and neither knows of any drawbacks to barbershop work at the university except for the parking. Both men enjoy the opportunity campus life affords them to meet and work with new students each year. “I’ve watched many students grow up,” said Howard, “and my son Jeffrey was only four when I started working here so he grew up with Wake Forest.” Howard said that the youthfulness of the university is his favorite part of his job. “Working here keeps you young,” he says, “and that’s what makes it fun.”