For years there has been a member of the Hiatt family cutting hair in downtown Mount Airy. Before Donna Hiatt struck out on her own and opened Donna’s Barber Shop she worked for more than a decade for her uncle Russell Hiatt, known locally as the real-life Floyd the Barber after “The Andy Griffith Show’ character ‘Floyd the Barber.’
This week, Hiatt has sold her shop at the corner of Oak Street and Renfro Street in downtown Mount Airy and is passing over both the keys and her shears to the next generation.
Perry Wagoner Jr. has been apprenticing at Hinton’s Barbershop in Dobson after completing his barber training and upon completion of his examination and certification. Hiatt said, “He’s taking over my seat.”
“My emotions are mixed, very mixed,” Hiatt said of the sale of her business to the Wagoner family. “I waited and waited for the right person to come along and buy the shop and keep my employees, they are like family to me, and they are the right people.”
“We’re excited about it,” Perry Wagoner Sr. explained. “This is a collaboration between me, Perry, and (my wife) Nicole, but we’re just going to be the landlords.”
“I am happy to carry on the name and the legacy that Donna had created,” the younger Wagoner said.
To take over Donna’s Barber Shop is a full circle experience for the younger Wagoner who once sat in Donna’s chair for one of his first haircuts when he was a child.
“I did his first haircut over at Floyd’s, my uncle Russell Hiatt’s shop, and his mother said she had found the photos of his first hair cut and now he’s going to be cutting hair in my chair,” Hiatt explained
His father chuckled at the irony that he would now be the owner of a barbershop. “I’m bald and I got my hair cut by Donna back then, too. It’s like Sam Malone buying the bar,” he said recounting the alcoholic turned bar owner in seminal 1980s comedy ‘Cheers.’
Many things are going to remain the same according to both Hiatt and the Wagoner family, not the least of which is keeping the name and retaining the services of Chris Moorefield and Duane Joyce.
Wagoner Sr. said that the new shop will be a collective effort between his family, Moorefield, and Joyce. Keeping those familiar faces will help maintain the sense of familiarity and family that many have come to associate with a trip to Donna’s. “I’m doing customers who are the children of folks I had at Floyd’s. That’s how long they will be loyal to you if it works,” Hiatt said.
Part of the appeal she said, “It’s still a family-oriented barber shop because we don’t do smoking, vaping, beers, or whatever is going on. We’re just a regular barbershop.”
Wagoner the Younger said some changes may be in order as he wants to try to grow the customer base while retaining the repeat customers who have made Donna’s Barber Shop a multi-year winner of The Mountie for best barbershop — a point she is happy to brag about.
“The Mountie Awards means something because it’s from the customers. That’s the customers input and that means something to me,” she said.
Perry Wagoner Jr., graduated from Mount Airy High School before attending Appalachian State University. He found that was not the right fit for him so opted instead to learn a trade at the Winston-Salem Barber School.
So many students in Surry County these days are opting to learn a trade in lieu of the tradition college path, growing enrollment in Surry-Yadkin Work programs and the creation of new jobs programs for young people have illustrated there can be more than one path to success.
Wagoner agreed. “A trade school is one of the best options currently. You get what you want and need to get into a trade and to making money.”
It seems there has been an uptick in recent years in independent hair salons and barbers in this area, Hiatt said she was not sure why that is. “For years no one wanted to be a barber.”
“There was a dip in barbers going through training in the last decade. People are going back to get the certification because they see an opening and are trying to take it,” Wagoner Jr. said.
He also said that a trend in recent years of heading to the discount mega hair cuttery may have fallen out of trend, especially for younger men seeking a look and style that is age-appropriate. “There are not a lot of young barbers and some middle or high school guys want to find their own barber who understand them” and can speak a similar language.
“I was the first woman working in a full men’s barbershop in Mount Airy and it took about a year for the men to start trusting me,” she recalled, saying she worked at Floyd’s for two decades before striking out on her own.
“Then they told me I wouldn’t make it on my own after I left Floyd’s, that I wouldn’t let them smoke and no one would follow me, but I had to take a chance.”
“It wasn’t like a job to me, it was like going to family everyday,” Hiatt reminisced. “Did I make a killing? No. Did I make it by? Sure. I kept a roof over our head and I was happy with me.”
“Donna Hiatt is a treasure,” Mount Airy Mayor Jon Cawley said. “She has served her community in all her endeavors. I know the new owners feel an obligation to carry on the tradition.”
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