DURHAM, N.C. -- By David Fowler's own reckoning, he has trimmed about 400,000 heads of hair at the Duke Barber Shop -- a six-decade career that began with flattops, survived the meager "long-hair period" and ended on campus May 31, when the shop shut its fabled doors.
In his time, the 82-year-old barber has neatened up a long string of Duke notables: basketball star Danny Ferry, whose 6-foot-10 frame barely fit in the chair; "Good Morning America Host" David Hartman, who signed a picture from his days in a Blue Devil singing quartet; and former Gov. Terry Sanford, who chided Fowler for raising a Republican son.
In Fowler's last days at the shop, the clumps of hair on the floor around his chair are mostly white, a sign that his customers' loyalty dates back decades.
"I'm going to embarrass Dave, but Duke would be better off losing Mike Krzyzewski," said Jim Thames, a customer for the last 38 years, referring to Duke's longtime basketball coach.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I had to say it."
With space at a premium, the university has other unspecified plans for the space Fowler leases in the basement of the Bryan Center. The shop has relocated several times since it opened in 1912, with Bryan Center its home since 2013.
When Fowler, a Smithfield native, arrived in 1959, fresh from the Durham Institute of Barbering, he could stand at Duke Chapel, look both ways and see the entire campus. Now, he muses, the whole of Duke isn't fully visible from a helicopter.
Fowler will snip on from his house in Hillsborough, hoping the faithful will follow him.
On his last day, he is booked from 6 in the morning until 7 at night.
"Everybody wants to be the last one," he said.
Adaptability kept him cutting for more than a half-century. Flattops ruled the '50s, but any barber in the Kennedy era had to learn the Ivy League cut or risk being square. Even greater challenges faced Fowler in 1969, a dark period for barbers that forced him to take a three-year hiatus from Duke and pick up new technique from his hairdresser wife.
The shop has experienced other milestones, when it hired the first black barber in 1969 and the first woman stylist in 1972, according to the shop's website.
On the Friday before Memorial Day, Fowler finished his final customer at 7 p.m., long after most of the campus had fled for beach highways and backyard grilling. And he noted that a rival barber in Columbia continues cutting hair at age 100.
He wouldn't mind matching that feat, though he recognizes the end arrives for everyone.
"I just hope I don't have to cut hair when I get there," he joked. "Somebody might say Jesus' hair needs a little trim."
High Profile on 06/17/2018