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People And The Pandemic, Episode 1: Montella Wimbley

Brian Grimmett
/
Kansas News Service
Montella Wimbley owns Profiles Beauty and Barber Salon in Wichita, Kansas.

Hair has been quite the topic during the coronavirus. For the first episode of My Fellow Kansans: People and the Pandemic, we spoke with a salon owner.

Credit Brian Grimmett / Kansas News Service
/
Kansas News Service

Montella Wimbley has owned a combination salon and barber shop in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Wichita for 34 years.

When Kansas shut business down, she had to put down her trimmers and pick up the phone — over and over again, taking weeks to get through to someone at the state’s beleaguered unemployment agency.

When Wimbley was allowed to reopen for her loyal customers, she also opened up to My Fellow Kansans.

Subscribe to Season 3 wherever you get your podcasts.

Brian Grimmett is a two-time Regional Edward R. Murrow award-winning journalist covering energy and environment stories across the state of Kansas.