TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Barber's Skill Takes Her A Cut Above

ADVERTISEMENT

By JEFF SCULLIN and FRED BELLET, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 8, 2008

DADE CITY - Ebony Adams made a name for herself scoring baskets for Pasco High School several years ago.

But her reputation as a barber was already well-established.

"It was basically just to put food on the table," said Adams, 24, who started cutting hair when she was 12. "I was just doing it for donations. ... As I got older, I realized, 'Hey, this could be my profession.'

"

Since September, when she opened Ebony's Barbershop on Martin Luther King Boulevard, Adams has established a steady clientele, all men. Her shop offers strictly haircuts and washes - no bleaching, dying or perms - and Adams does them all.

It's a grind, but things aren't any busier than when she was cutting hair on the back porch at Lake George Manor. She practiced on her brothers growing up and then cut hair through middle and high school. The haircuts went cheap in those days, but they paid for school supplies, basketballs and shoes - even her cap and gown.

Even though Lake George Manor has been renovated since then, the ring from Adams' old barber chair is still visible on the porch.

"The field here would be full of cars from everyone waiting to get a haircut," she said during a recent trip back. "Twelve years old."

Adams, who grew up poor with five brothers, felt pressured to bring in extra money at an early age.

"Money was a major problem in my family," said Adams, who got her first set of professional equipment from one of her brothers.

"So, I kind of jumped off the porch at an early age and started hustling - meaning selling pencils, candy fruit cups - anything that I could do to generate money. I kind of understood life at an early age."

As she got older, basketball and filmmaking became more important. But filmmaking, which Adams calls her first love, seemed unlikely to pay the bills, and a knee injury in 2001 cut short her college basketball career.

Though she cut hair under the table for years, Adams never thought she would open her own shop. For a time, it seemed like she never would. Adams twice "fell out" of barber college, partly because of the cost. Last year, though, she got serious and worked out a payment plan with the Florida Academy of Hair Design in Zephyrhills. She received her barber's license in March.

When she was finally ready to open her shop, the customers were waiting. She had been cutting hair in this small town for 12 years.

Only now, instead of charging $2 for a $15 haircut, she charges full price.

Assistant Pasco team leader Jeff Scullin can be reached at (813) 779-4614 or jscullin@tampatrib .com. Keyword: Ebony Adams, to watch an audio slideshow of Ebony Adams at work.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT