BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — You could say becoming a barber was April Wright’s destiny.
Wright said, “I remember coming in here whenever I was young.”
Her grandparents, who helped raise her, have owned Riley’s Barbershop in Mayfield since the 60s.
She said, “My granddad, he passed away four years.”
Carrying on his legacy is important to April. But there were some speed bumps in her journey to barbering.
“The thing is my past. I had a pretty rough past. I mean, I kind of got on drugs. I got in some trouble,” she told Spectrum News 1.
April first tried barber school in 1999, but quit. It wasn’t until 2015 she realized she could try again. IN 2016, April’s dream came true. Finally, she was a barber.
“It gave me a second chance,” she said.
However, her dream came to a screeching halt when a deadly tornado hit Mayfield, killing 22 people and destroying her shop, Fresh Cuttz.
She recalled, “I’ll never forget it. There was people walking down the street just crying, screaming.”
When she first saw her shop, April couldn’t believe her eyes. She remembered, “It looked like a freakin’ war zone. It looked like a bomb had went off.” She said, “I fixed that shop up. I put my money, my money, into that to fix it up. You know what I mean? And it’s just like it’s gone now. What am I gonna do?”
April then ran into famous TikToker, Charlie Rocket. He was helping victims recover from the tragedy financially.
She said, “He’s like, you know, ‘What’s your dream?’ So I said, ‘Well, my dream. I was living my dream, which is being a barber.’”
Rocket wanted to see what was left of April’s shop. She couldn’t believe it. She said, “It’s a feeling that I just can’t. I can’t describe it. It’s like somebody really cares.”
Rocket is helping to rebuild April’s dream. Her shop right now is rubble.
She showed Spectrum News 1 what is left of Fresh Cuttz and it wasn’t easy for her.
“I hate coming up here. I hate it. I’m gonna be glad when it becomes something new,” she said.
She tried to explain what the shop once looked like, but with the extensive damage, it was hard to picture.
Despite losing her livelihood, April is grateful to be alive and knows what once stood was only a building. She says her faith is keeping her strong.
“I feel like God gave me the gift to just get through anything, no matter how difficult,” April said.
April doesn’t know when Fresh Cuttz will be back up and running, but in the meantime, she’s seeing clients at her grandmother’s shop, Riley’s Barbershop.