The beauty shop is an American staple right up there with apple pie and baseball.

Call it what you will — beauty parlor, style shop or hair salon, everyone has probably stepped foot in one, sat in a chair, thumbed through the year-old magazines, watched soap operas, chatted and caught up on “the latest,” and gotten the works. Or as some would say, got “fried, dyed and laid to the side.” 

Maybe it started in MeeMaw’s or Big Mama’s kitchen – permanents and hot combs, playing with dolls or putting ribbons in the pet dog’s hair. Whatever planted the seed — a yearning to “do” hair and nails and learn the trade, grew into a passion that can lead to working in one of those beauty places or owning one, being a hairstylist and make-up artist to the stars or even a beautician for the dearly departed. The options are endless.

Braids, weaves, relaxers, dye-jobs, extensions, skin-care, perms, manicures, wigs, touch-ups, trims, cuts and even emergency assistance when that home treatment goes sideways. The salon is where it’s happening. Cosmetology is popular, big business and ever growing.

Enter, Delta Technical College and its School of Cosmetology, located in Ridgeland. 

There’s Theory, where students in classrooms learn the ins-and-outs, do’s and don’t of the business from veterans with real-world experience. And Practical, where students are in a salon setting receiving hands-on training from seasoned instructors, all of which leads to testing to become board certified.

“I have a passion for it,” said instructor Marcia Williams, who teaches a Theory class at the school. “I’m a 22-year instructor and, honestly, I know these students want to take it to another level and I help them to do that.”

“I ask students what their short and long term goals are. I help them to know, whether opening their own salons or being an educator, you don’t have to go to a four-year college. It’s about work and passion. I see their dreams and ideas. It can be 10 years later, and I’ll hear from former students and they’ll ask me, remember when…? That’s what it’s all about.”

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