PRESTON – Weldon Cheney is a barber in Preston. For nearly 18 years he’s been snipping and shaving men’s heads. He works quickly and he’s efficient. From the time his doors open at 9 a.m. He’s cutting hair until he closes the door at 5 p.m.
On the low end he may cut 25 heads of hair. Most of the time it’s upward around 40 heads, but on his busiest day he said he counted up to 83 haircuts.
There are other people who cut hair in Preston, mostly beauty shops or ladies who cut hair at home, but Cheney owns the only barber shop in the county.
Being a barber was not on his want-to-do list for a profession. He was a builder; he built homes, barns or whatever someone wanted with his father-in-law Jon Reese in the Bear Lake area.
“I was working construction in the Bear Lake area during the winter, and we went to a lumber yard when I saw a barber cutting hair,” Cheney said. “That looked like quite the life working in a warm place in the winter, shooting the breeze with people. I thought to myself I could do that.”
He went to a hair cutting school in Logan, got his license to cut hair, turned a small engine repair shop into a two-chair barbershop and started cutting hair.
And it took off. Men liked having a man cut hair and Cheney was easy to talk to.
“I think I’m busy because people like the way I cut hair,” he said. “The other thing about being a good barber is building relationships.”
He gets to know his clientele and talks to them about life and whatever else that comes up. Within a half an hour he talked to one guy about skiing, ice fishing to another guy going through a rough patch dealing with a divorce.
“The thing about building relationships is you get to know them then some of the older guys die,” Cheney said. “That’s hard when you know them. They become your friend and they never come back in for a haircut.”
He doesn’t take appointments. He takes cash, check, card or Venmo. There is usually one in the chair getting worked on and at least another one or two waiting their turn. Sometimes all five chairs are full in front of the big window at the north end of his shop.
Right now, Cheney is charging $14 for a haircut. He’s telling his customers he’s going to raise the price a couple of bucks soon. He said the cost of groceries is going up and he has a couple of mouths to feed besides his own.
“I have two daughters One is turning 12 years next month and the other is 14 years-old,” he said. ”I lost my wife (Julie) in September. We were married 21 years in February.”
His wife went to a hospital in Murray for what he thought was a routine scope procedure. She came out of the surgery fine, but the next day things went bad and she never came home. He changed his hours and quit working on Saturdays to spend more time with his daughters.
“She died just when my daughters needed her most,” Cheney said. “Everyone including me was surprised when she didn’t come home.”
He is talking about bringing on another barber in the coming weeks. He wants someone to work Saturdays and maybe one or two other days so he can keep the place open six days a week.
The Caldwell native said the people of Preston have been good to him. His clientele has grown outside of Franklin County over the years.
“I have people coming from Logan, Clarkston, Trenton and even have people that come from Star Valley to have me cut their hair,” he said. “They found me once and keep coming back.”
When the Preston barber is not cutting hair he still stays busy building furniture, homes and most importantly his relationship with what is left of his family.