Barbers are anything but hair today, gone tomorrow

By FINN HARTNETT

Staff writer

Marion County has few hairdressers and fewer barbers.

The ones who remain present an interesting mix of newcomers and old-timers. Each has a loyal clientele. A few are extremely close. And a few hardly know each other.

The hairdressing veterans of the county, such as Martin Bina of Martin’s Barbershop in Marion and Randy Weins of Silver Shears outside Hillsboro, tend to have close relationships, built up over the years.

The two have been cutting each other’s hair — “barber bonding,” as the Record termed it in 2016 — for close to a decade.

Before that, each had their own buddies.

“I was with this old boy from Hope, Kansas up till he died,” Bina said. “We were cutting each other’s hair for 50 years.”

Donald “Dick” Elliot, a close friend, died in 2019.

Weins and long-time buddy Ed Grothe cut each other’s hair for 30 years before Grothe’s death.

Since then, Weins and Bina have began to drop by each other’s shops for reciprocal haircuts.

Although he hails from Pilsen, Bina is a fixture of the Marion community.

After graduating from Centre High School in the early 1960s, Bina was “talked into” becoming a barber by his uncle. He spent six months in a hairdressing school before serving 18 months under an elder barber in an apprenticeship.

“I learned more there than I ever did in school,” Bina said.

Bina had almost acquired his barber’s license when the government announced an upcoming draft in the buildup for the Vietnam War.

He recalls speaking to Leona Childs of the county draft board, who told him he wouldn’t be able to get his barber’s license while serving the Army but might be able to in the National Guard.

Bina joined the Guard, earned his barber’s license, and was able to return to Marion after six months of basic training.

He worked alongside fellow barber Wayne Schrader for a number of years before buying his property off of him in 1965.

Long-time Marion barber Al Holder stopped by after Bina purchased Schrader’s space.

“He said, ‘thank you for coming to Marion,’” Bina recalls. “He was real nice.”

Bina later moved to a different shop across the street, but he has always remained devoted to Marion. He has been cutting some of his clients’ hair for over 50 years.

“I’ve got a lot of loyal customers,” he said.

Bina doesn’t speak much to other barbers in the county, even though a barbershop opened across the street from him in February: The Rusty Edge II, operated by Shawn Nguyen.

“I figure it’s up to him to talk to me. I’ve been here longer than he has,” Bina said. “I see him from here across the street, that’s about it.”

Weins has shown similar barber longevity. He initially enrolled in barber school because he “didn’t know what else to do.”

Weins has been cutting hair for 52 years. He originally opened Silver Shears on Hillsboro’s Main St. in 1982, but moved to Kanza Rd. outside town in 2021. His shop is now quite literally in his backyard.

“I figured after 50 years of haircutting, I was either going to quit or do something different,” Weins said. “And I guess this is something different.”

He enjoys working next to his house.

“It’s perfect,” he said. “I come out here at 7:30 or so, turn the lights on, turn the heat on, or the air conditioning. Then I usually go back in the house and have a cup of coffee and start cutting hair at around 8 o’clock.”

Weins credits conversations he has with customers and the variation in his days for allowing him to practice his craft for so long.

“Every day’s different,” he said. “Some days you don’t do much, and some days you never sit down.”

He has begun taking Wednesdays off since moving off of Main St.; he calls it his “motorcycle and fishing day.”

Weins often spends Wednesdays with the Romeo Riders, a motorcycle group of about 30 retirees who ride to various towns and organize lunches.

“I think we all got a place,” Weins said of barbers of the county.

He is good friends with Bina (“He’s cut hair for 62 years. I’ve cut hair for 52 years… We both give good haircuts,” he remarked), and occasionally drops by some of the younger barbers’ shops, such as Shawn Willson of Mr. Peabody’s Barbershop or Chris LaPerle, who took over Weins’s former space in Hillsboro.

“I think we all get along OK. I don’t think anybody’s mad at anybody,” Weins said.

Willson and LaPerle are so close that Willson officiated at LaPerle’s wedding in 2021. (Both are ordained ministers.)

The two met when in Wichita, where LaPerle worked at Willson’s barbershop for 10 years.

LaPerle moved to Marion County to open a shop in 2021, and Willson wasn’t far behind, opening his Peabody shop the next year.

Before hairdressing, Willson worked as an auto mechanic.

“It’s a lot less taxing on the body,” he said of cutting hair.

Most customers in Willson’s barbershop call him by his longtime nickname, Elvis.

“When I was 2 years old, Elvis Pressley died,” he explained. “I had a plastic little racecar, and I played it like a guitar. And I played with that thing the whole day and cried.”

That day, he said, his family gave him his nickname. He’s run with it ever since. Sometimes, he’ll refer to his wife as Priscilla.

Willson wakes up at 9 a.m. and opens his shop at 10. He gets about 20 customers on a good day.

There’s “nothing real special being a barber,” he said. But he enjoys the relationships he’s able to foster.

“You’re kind of an armchair therapist. People will come in, talk about their problems,” Willson said. “You become one with folks and their families, and you’re waiting to hear about the next thing in their lives, because, you know, you hear someone’s expecting a baby, or they’re getting married, or they had an operation.”

Working in Marion County is slower than Wichita, but the people are friendlier, he said.

Willson said he didn’t know Bina and Weins well, although Bina sometimes makes an appearance at Coneburg Bar and Grill in Peabody. He has not met Nguyen.

In addition to The Rusty Edge II in Marion, Nguyen operates the original Rusty Edge in Dodge City. He splits his time between the two shops.

Before hairdressing, he worked as a bail and recovery agent.

“Then, I decided I wanted to do something myself, and started barbering,” he said. “I thought it was going to be a part-time gig, but it’s been a lot more than that.”

Nguyen received his barber’s license in 2017, after which he opened his Dodge City barbershop.

Marion and Dodge City differ in terms of hairstyles, he said.

“People are more worried about their aesthetics” in Dodge City, Nguyen said. “Around here, everybody likes a ballcap and a little bit of extra hair. They don’t like to go real tight.”

Nguyen said he respected Bina’s skills, but more modern styles were important, particularly in Dodge City.

“Barbers didn’t want to change. But you gotta adapt, man. If you don’t adapt, you don’t survive,” he said.

Asked about his relationship with other county barbers, Nguyen said he met with LaPerle to discuss barbering in a small town. (LaPerle declined to be interviewed.)

Other than that, he is a bit removed from the scene. He goes to Dodge City to get his own hair cut.

“If they came and asked me a question, I’d talk to them. But other than that, I don’t pursue looking for them,” Nguyen said. “If someone needs a haircut, and they’re open and I’m not, I’m sending them over there. I’m not a jealous barber.”