Another turn for old barber shop

Jack Steiner can tell a story as well as anyone and he is getting more opportunities these days.
Steiner has cut hair in Iola since 1966, part time until two weeks ago.
Then, Greg Shields, with whom he had worked the previous 12 years in a shop owned by John Zahm at 110 West St., opened his own shop on the opposite side of the Iola square.
Steiner was faced with either hanging up his clippers or adjusting his hours. For the past several years he had cut hair on Tuesdays and Saturdays, after having spent many years previous to that working at the shop on Saturdays, while teaching and coaching in Yates Center.
His decision was to have the shop open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.
“I decided not to work Saturdays, for the first time in more than 45 years,” said Steiner, 66. “I have twin granddaughters who are in kindergarten, and Saturdays are about the only time I can take them places.”
Also, Saturdays are when a good many sports events unfold. Few people are bigger fans and spend more time watching basketball and football at all levels more than Steiner.

RIGHT OUT of Yates Center High in 1964, Steiner, as it is with many his age, didn’t have a definite idea of what he wanted to do with his adult life.
“I’d watched an old Yates Center barber, and envied how he always had a good time visiting with customers and seemed to be making good money,” Steiner recalled between haircuts Wednesday afternoon.
Barber school being a six-month session also wasn’t lost on young Steiner.
In 1966 he joined Zahm at the Iola shop, but wasn’t there long.
Steiner was activated with the National Guard and had a six-month tour at Fort Polk, La.  When he returned to Iola, his brother, Bill, was parked behind the second chair in Zahm’s shop.
He caught on at a six-chair shop in the White Lakes Mall in Topeka, then the largest shop in Kansas, but was back in Iola before long after Bill opened his own shop in Yates Center.
Before he had settled in too much, Steiner, known for his varied interests, enrolled at Allen County Community College and over five years, taking five to six credit hours a semester, earned an associate’s degree. He went on to Emporia State to earn a teaching degree.
Soon he was back in Yates Center, teaching and coaching, and hooked back up with Zahm, working Saturdays.
“I started the Tuesday and Saturday schedule in 2002,” with Shields after Zahm retired in 1999, Steiner said, and kept with it until the first of this month when Shields moved to his new shop.

“JACK WAS a delight to have in the shop,” Zahm recalled. “He kept me and the customers laughing with all the stories he told, and his storytelling led me to talk more with my customers.”
Many of his stories were self-deprecating, Steiner allowed.
“I’ve made a few mistakes in my life and I’ve never been afraid to admit it when I did,” Steiner said. “I had a class in salesmanship from Don Andrews at the college (ACCC), and he said one thing he liked about me was that I could make fun of myself.”
Zahm often got into the act.
“When Jack went to solo when he was learning to fly, I went along to watch him crash,” Zahm quipped.

ZAHM, 72, AND Steiner, from their long association with the shop, have a historical perspective.
“When I started in 1966, there were 11 shops in Iola and 13 barbers,” Steiner said. “Now we have three shops and four barbers.”
Neither knows for certain how long there has been a shop at 110 West St. West Street Barber Shop was there in the 1940s, and Zahm once found a sign that advertised haircuts for 10 cents, which leads him to think the shop was there back to the 1930s, or even before.
Zahm arrived in Iola in 1963, after starting his tonsorial career in Columbus.
A supplies salesman mentioned to Zahm that Charlie Reeder was wanting to sell his shop — at 110 West St. — and Zahm found it to his liking, although right off the bat he wasn’t sure the choice was a wise one.
“My first night in Iola I slept in the backseat of my car,” he said. “I didn’t have any money” — wasn’t immediately sure when he might.
“One of my first days in the shop it was 4 in the afternoon before I cut my first head of hair,” Zahm said.
Then, haircuts were $1.25, and once he was established Zahm was cutting 20 or more heads each day. Most customers stopped by every two to three weeks, but then long hair became the fad in the late 1960s. Time between visits lengthened and for the first time beauticians found men and boys stopping by their shops for stylish cuts.
Not to be left out, Zahm attended several styling seminars and added “style” to the name his shop.
“Some barbers didn’t want to cut the longer hair, but it didn’t bother me,” he said. “I did whatever people wanted.”
Zahm’s vocational choice was prompted by a friend of his parents who cut hair at a “speed shop” in Wichita.
“They cut hair as fast as they could and he (the friend) always had a wad of money in his pocket,” Zahm said. “I thought, ‘Why be a farmer (he grew up on farm) when you can cut hair and have a pocketful full of money.’”