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Stylist Goes From Hair To Eternity

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By SHERRI ACKERMAN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 6, 2008

TAMPA - Melodious hymns spill from the back of the tidy Albany Avenue shop, where women and girls trust Sandra Thomas with their most glorious possessions: their hair and their souls.

In the front room, a sign calls for patrons to simply BELIEVE. Another warns that prices are subject to change according to customers' attitudes.

Thomas stands hand-in-hand with longtime clients, some whose hair she has styled for nearly 30 years now. They're more like friends and family than her bread-and-butter.

With her eyes closed tightly, she lets the spirit take her as she thanks the Lord.

"We know all this comes from you," says the 55-year-old mother of five and grandmother of 14, with tears trickling down her cheeks.

"Amen," her sisters - and a few brothers - respond in unison as they form a circle inside Ms. Sandra's Beauty Salon.

"Let them know that the Word comforts them," Thomas continues. "Yes," her flock answers.

It's shortly after 9 a.m. Friday, the busiest day of the week for the hairdresser-turned-preacher. But she never misses her morning prayers. Not since God came calling seven years ago, telling her to comfort those who find their way into Ms. Sandra's chair.

Since then, Thomas has made spirituality an integral part of her business. In addition to the daily prayers she leads in her salon, she has counseled the drug-addicted, the homeless and the poor, even lending money to strangers who find their way into the West Tampa shop off Main Street.

"They bring it back," Thomas says, but she won't worry if they don't. "If you're going to give, give. I never put expectations on it."

Her kindness and gentle touch are what attracted Betty Dean, a 68-year-old regular who can't remember when she wasn't going to Thomas. Now her grandchildren come.

"There are very few shops you can go in and get treated for the total man," Dean says. "This is for the spiritual and physical. Salons and barbershops are known for their gossiping. Not here."

"It's gospeling, not gossiping," quips 65-year-old Barbara Wright, a well-coiffed client for six years. "I like coming here because for Ms. Sandra, this was a calling in her life. Not a hearing from the ear. It's a calling from her heart."

Born and raised in Bealsville, a historic black settlement near Plant City, Thomas was no stranger to the Bible. Her mother, Lottie Durant, comes from a long line of preachers.

"She kept me grounded," says Thomas, a country girl who started doing hair for her siblings, then her neighbors.

Boys and girls all over Bealsville had fancy hairdos, sometimes topped with neon green or burgundy tint.

"They looked like aliens," Thomas recalls, laughing.

She moved to Tampa and went to cosmetology school, but times were tough. Thomas didn't want to live in the projects but found herself renting an apartment at North Boulevard Homes. Her children didn't like it, but Thomas kept them grounded.

"We're just here for a little while," she would tell them. "We're not here to stay."

And they didn't. All of her brood went to college, Thomas brags. They became productive and self-sufficient, and never forgot where they had been. Just like their mother.

"When you touch people's hearts, you know God can raise you up," Thomas says, then offers this reminder: "Don't you give up because you're in that storm."

Prayers take place Tuesday through Saturday at 9 a.m. at the salon, 1609 N. Albany Ave. For information, call (813) 253-8896.

Reporter Sherri Ackerman can be reached at (813) 259-7144 or sackerman@tampatrib.com.

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