Rogersville salon re-emerges after tornado

Just a month after an April 30 tornado struck the Rogersville area and destroyed a hair salon, its owner has her business back up and running.

Salon Knot LLC is now open at 424 Redbud St. after its former home at 71 Endeavor Drive sustained extensive damage to its roof and walls from the twister, resulting in the building being torn down last week, said owner Jenni Bybee. The salon first opened in 2015.

“It was considered a total loss,” Bybee said, adding she and other staff members left the salon a little before 8 p.m. that night, shortly before the tornado tore through town around 8:45 p.m.

“We were very fortunate to have left,” she said.

The salon’s new home opened May 14, after Tender Heart Animal Clinic LLC’s Barry Retchloff and his wife, Kim, reached out to Bybee following the storm. Bybee said she’s on a one-year lease for an undisclosed rate with the Retchloffs, but noted she plans to work out a long-term arrangement to stay at the new spot.

“We wouldn’t have been able to do what we did without their support,” she said of the Retchloffs, who leased her a roughly 2,000-square-foot former farmhouse near their veterinary practice.

A GoFundMe campaign established by Paul Mitchell Schools, for which Bybee is an education director, has raised more than $8,300 to help pay for building renovations.

“That was so incredibly kind. That made all the remodeling we had to do right away doable,” Bybee said.

Community members and customers also assisted in remodeling efforts at the salon, which helped it reopen so quickly, she added.

“To go through that and see how the community rallied around us like that was really incredible,” Bybee said.

More remodeling work will be conducted in the future, Bybee said, such as utilization of an upstairs loft that can double as an employee break area and a customer waiting room. She also has plans to add to her three-person staff in the next couple of months that will allow an esthetician and nail technician to come on board.

The April 30 storm was the second time Bybee’s life has been directly impacted by a twister, as her mother, Regina Bloxham, was killed in the 2011 Joplin tornado.

“It definitely reminds you how fast life can change,” she said.