LODGE GRASS — Merval Phelan recalls his childhood in Crow Agency, where he often struggled to find a good hair cutting service.
“On the Rez, there’s not a lot of people that cut hair well,” Phelan said one sunny afternoon. “I needed a haircut, and everyone who cut hair was either unavailable or, to be honest, in jail.”
At just nine years old, Phelan decided to take matters into his own hands.
“I went home, found some clippers under the bathroom sink, put a guard on, and started cutting my own hair,” he remembered.
Phelan jokingly admits that he has not trusted anyone else to cut his hair since then.
Now, 20 years later, he is the only certified barber in the area, a career path he never anticipated.
“I once said, ‘I’ll go anywhere in the world but Lodge Grass.’ But as soon as those words left my mouth when I was 18, I knew I would end up in Lodge Grass one day,” he said with a laugh.
Today, Phelan operates a newly equipped trailer with a coffee shop in a revitalized community on the rise, aptly named Arise.
Among the steady flow of customers, Tuff Good Luck, a young regular, sits for his stylish fade.
“He really does well with Merval,” remarked Savannah Good Luck, Tuff’s mother. “We’ve been to other places, but I think it’s just a comfort thing for him, the textures and everything.”
Phelan is committed to serving the community where he has recently settled with his family. He pays attention even to the smallest details, such as the positioning of his barber chair.
“I face the chair this way,” he explained, gesturing toward the wall. “When people come in and sit down, as soon as I turn the chair away from the glass doors, they say, ‘I don’t feel like I’m in Lodge Grass.’
“It’s not that we don’t want them to feel like they’re in Lodge Grass … we want them to feel like Lodge Grass is improving, growing, rehabilitating.”
Since the grand opening six weeks ago, there have been no instances of vandalism or disturbances on the premises.
“No, we haven’t had any issues. There have been no fights,” Phelan confirmed.
With two new businesses sharing a deck, Phelan’s next goal is to attract more traffic to the town by installing an interstate sign highlighting the new establishments.
Mayor Quincy Dabney, who shares Phelan’s vision for growth, is in favor of a gradual approach.
“I want to give this time to grow,” he said while lounging on the deck.
He envisions the town’s next project catering to the youth, possibly a youth center or a nostalgic penny candy store reminiscent of the community’s original Cozy Corner.
“The retro, the 70s, the red-topped leather with chrome-wrapped seats … and then put up that sign on the interstate,” Dabney mused.
One can almost picture the interstate sign approaching Lodge Grass: CUTS COFFEE CANDY — NEXT EXIT.
