Becki Neal closing doors of Sisters salon

After 31 years of cutting hair in Sisters, Becki Neal is calling it quits - sort of.

"I'm closing the doors on B-J & Friends (salon) and I'm going to work at Bliss one day a week," Neal told The Nugget.

That one day a week will allow Neal to keep serving a clientele that has become a group of friends.

"I love my clientele," Neal said. "I've been doing it for 31 years, and they're my friends. It's hard to walk away from it."

The closure of the salon takes place as of December 31.

Neal has been trying to sell the business she and her sister started in 1978 for the past three years. A dismal economy means there are no takers.

"It takes five years to build up a small business to where you can support yourself," Neal said.

The staff at B-J & Friends is moving on, too. Shireen Patton is retiring (Neal coaxed her back into the business once before) and Traci Skinner is moving over to Bliss.

Neal, who is looking at a second hip replacement this winter, said that "my body is trying to tell me I need to stop working so much." But, she said, her husband Jim agreed with her that being home seven days a week wasn't such a great idea, either. One day of work a week seemed about right.

Neal has seen a lot of changes since opening her business back in '78. Two changes stand out in her mind: the completion of a municipal sewer system and the building of a high school in Sisters.

"We needed the sewer so bad, and I'm so grateful it came in," she said, noting that the system was under debate when she got here in 1978 and it took till 1998 to make it happen.

Neal said she was always horrified to see school busses going down an icy Highway 126 toward high school in Redmond.

"I was glad to see us have a high school so that the kids could stay here," she said.

Neal said she has a lot of memories from her time in business in Sisters - most happy, some sad. One thing that sticks most in her mind is the community reaction when her house burned to the ground on April 6, 2008.

"The outpouring of genuine care and concern was pretty amazing," she said. "You don't realize it until it happens to you. Still makes me weepy."

And Neal has one person she especially wanted to thank:

"I want to tell Glenn Miller thanks for being a great landlord. He's been a good friend, a great landlord and he built me a great house."

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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