CINCINNATI — Damon Weathington has loved the art of barbering ever since he was a child.
“I like the transformation. Seeing a person with their hair crazy and then you can bring it to where it is like art,” he said.
Weathington is honing his skills at Premier Barber College in Roselawn, but his path to barber college wasn’t easy. Weathington said he did a lot of growing up in prison, where he spent six years for a drug-related offense.
“Just realized that life is much more precious than I was taking it, so when I came home I decided to really take barbering serious,” he said.
That’s why he was so devastated when the coronavirus forced the college to close in mid-March.
“I was just taking it a day at a time,” he said. “I knew eventually it would come together. I knew it wouldn’t be closed down forever.”
The school has since reopened, but owner Isaiah Young said it’s been a difficult process for him and 19 students. Not only did students miss out on instruction, the closure forced them to miss out on money from clients.
“They put their blood, sweat, and tears into it, so not having any answers for them is very frustrating,” Young said.
For now, Young said he and the students are following every precaution to keep everyone safe, including wearing masks and practicing social distancing.
“I don’t know what the numbers are going to do. Are they going to spike again? We're just going with the flow. What we are going to do now is just take every day, day by day, and make the best out of it,” he said.
Weathington said his end goal is to own a franchise and have three or four barber shops.
“Maybe I can run a school some day,” he said.
