WYTHEVILLE, Va. – A Wytheville barber is reaching for the stars after he’s spent time cutting hair for different actors in major Hollywood productions. He’s hoping his story of consistency will inspire others to keep working at what they love.
Daveon Rhyans, 34, currently works out of his suite at Turning Heads Salon.
He brings in about 10-12 clients a day doing the very thing that he genuinely loves, which is cutting.
“I am good doing the haircuts, but it is about building the relationships that you build with the clients,” Rhyans said. “That is the goal and purpose for me. It is bigger than cutting hair. I am a therapist. We talk about kids, family sports and everything and that is the best part about the job.”
He’s been cutting hair professionally for seven years, but the passion for barbering started when he was around 8 years old.
“My cousin used to cut hair for everyone in the neighborhood on the back porch,” he said. “I started messing around with different stuff. I used to use fingernail clippers when people were sleep and I used to cut the hair of my little wrestling men and then I would get a sharpie and would put the line up and hair back on them and that is kind of where it started.”
At age 13, Rhyans picked up his first pair of clippers for the dollar store.
“Now that I look back on it, my first haircut was terrible,” he laughed. “I got one clipper from Dollar General, but I learned with consistency and repetition, I would get better and better.”
Ryhans said he actually never wanted to be a barber.
“I just wanted to play basketball,” he said. “But I would cut hair before and after practice. Before the games. I never stopped but I didn’t want to be a barber. It was just something people kept asking me to cut their hair and they liked what I did. It was the people around me seeing the talent I didn’t know I had. I was just doing it for fun as a hobby. I think the consistency and people around me telling me, ‘You are good at this!’ is what really kept me going at the time.”
That talent was later recognized in his life in 2012 when he moved to Wytheville and started working at a factory.
“I was cutting my kids’ hair at the time, and I would post pics on social media and then the lady over this salon reached out and asked if I wanted a suite. I said, ‘Yes’, I would be working two jobs. I’d be at the factory and then I would come here until 10 at night.”
That woman is Latasha Crockett and Rhyans said she became a great motivator to him.
“She continued to push me and would send me to different trainings and classes and workshops,” he said. “She really was one of the ones that helped me pursue this dream that I am living now.”
Rhyans also gives a lot of credit to his grandparents who raised him.
He said they didn’t play about two things and those were doing chores and being good in education. They also wanted to make sure that Rhyans didn’t go down the same path as his parents who he said struggled with drugs and prison time.
“One thing that was instilled in me was to never do drugs,” he said. “That is one of the biggest things that I appreciate my Grandparents for. We had VCR tapes we would watch and when we came home, my grandmother was always present making sure we were right. Peer pressure was not an problem. I said no and kept it moving. Seeing things from my parents and friends and family it made me realize that wasn’t the route I wanted to go through so keeping that in mind really helped me throughout my life.”
He said it was difficult having an on and off relationship with his parents.
“They were doing things that mentally at age of 9 and 10, I knew it was wrong,” he said. “I didn’t want to be around the household or around certain people and things. And I think molded me into what I am today. I never got to a point where I wanted to give up. It was always being very observant and learning from others’ mistakes. Whether it was my parents or friends. I think if my grandparents weren’t there, I may have taken a different route, so I think that was a thing that inspired me the most is having those two people when I needed them the most.”
Sadly, when Rhyans was graduating high school in 2007, his grandfather passed away and despite still healing from that pain, he still carries the values that he was taught by him.
“He was all about consistency,” he said. “Consistency and being there for your children.”
It was that mindset that kickstarted his career working on production sets as a barber.
“The first job I had was with Tyler Perry Studios,” Rhyans said. “The crazy thing about that is that I went down and worked for him for one day. Got sick from covid. So, I was done. I couldn’t finish the show. I was down on myself and came back to the shop, but I really just thought it wasn’t for me.”
But then, he got another call and that call led to him working on multiple productions including, ‘Average Joe,’ starring actor and comedian Deon Cole.
“I went from supposedly working on that for three days to three months, so I stayed on that for a pretty long time,” he said. “God has been good to me, and he blessed me with that situation.”
Rhyans said, like any chapter in life, he had some ups and downs.
“It was things I went through that taught me a lot about myself,” he said. “A lot of adversity sometimes. There were times where people didn’t like my haircuts. It depended on the actor. There were times when they didn’t like it. Times I had to go back and change things and times I would think it this for me. But I fought through and understood what my skill level was. Go back and fix a few things and get myself together.”
He eventually found his groove and the rest is history working 14 to 16-hour days.
“When the actors go to start filming, I have to go with them and when I get there they will have a monitor set up for different departments and I have to watch that monitor while they are filming and if I see their hair out of place or something, they will call last look, I have to sprint in to fix whatever needs to be fixed and come back and watch the screen until they are done,” he said.
Rhyans said his ultimate goal is to be a full-time production set barber and he hopes to reach that goal as soon as the Hollywood strike is over. In the meantime, he stays busy in Wytheville and his hopes his story cuts a deeper message for others.
“The universe always rewards consistency,” Rhyans said. “It took me a long time to realize that. Day by day regardless of what you are going through, as long as you are consistent and disciplined and motivated within your actions, everything will come together and when it does, even though you are successful, you got to keep going.”