Small-town hair salon good place for a story

Here's a story that can be done in many small towns with a longtime hair stylist, and a good example of how to do it, from Brittany Cofer of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. She went up US 127 to Dunlap, population 5,200, to profile the Bouffant Salon, named for the most popular hairstyle when it opened 50 years ago.

"Leaning over a small table, Anna Faye Heard files down Naomi Barker’s nails. Barker, with her hair wound tightly in yellow, blue, orange and purple rollers, has visited Heard’s shop twice a week for nearly 15 years," Cofer writes, quoting Heard: "This is a modern day ‘Steel Magnolias,’ that’s what I like to say."

(TFP photo by Jenna Walker: Heard does Barker's hair) Heard, 68, was 18 when she opened the shop. Naomi Barker is my aunt, and she displayed the Miller girls' capacity for succinct wisdom when she told Cofer why she had been a Bouffant regular from her first visit: “What lady doesn’t want to get her hair done? She does what we want, and it’s a friendly atmosphere.” (Read more)