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FRIDAY MARCH 9/12
Tish Gregory | When March Madness strikes [6]
A new home | The Renton Chamber of Commerce will move into the historic train Reporter Newsline 425.255.3484 depot on Burnett Avenue [3]
For 50 years, style, cut, color – not to mention the manure
Center Coiffures was on the back side of the Renton Center complex when it opened. Betty Richards
State wrap | Lindbergh boys basketball takes fifth at state, plus the start of spring previews [12]
Library petition falls short; big push Saturday to reach goal By TRACEY COMPTON tcompton@rentonreporter.com
Betty Richards, left, the original owner of Center Coiffures, gets a regular Friday morning style from her daughter Judy Ford, who has owned the salon on Rainier Avenue since 1998. The salon is marking its 50th anniversary this month. Dean a. radford, Renton Reporter
By DEAN A. RADFORD dradford@rentonreporter.com
For 50 years the news – and the gossip – of Renton has been told and retold from the hairstyling chairs at Center Coiffures. “If you want to know what’s going on in town, come get your hair done,” says Mike O’Connell, a longtime stylist and
one-time owner of the salon. Center Coiffures is marking its anniversary this month, even though its lineage goes back a little earlier, to when Betty Richards started her career at Renton Beauty Salon at the Renton Center on Rainier Avenue. The year was 1960 and Renton Center was still a work in progress. But it had the beauty salon and a barber shop a
[ more salon page 14 ]
[ more library page 14 ]
206.949.1696 www.marciemaxwell.com Marcie Maxwell Associate Broker, Realtor & CRS
Lisa Lam
Realtor, CRS, ABR & ASP
588154
Center Coiffures marks 50th, along with the Renton Center
couple doors down. Richards walked into the salon, looking for a job, fresh from graduating from Bennett’s Beauty School on Main Avenue in Renton. “I got the job,” said Richards, who was 30 when she enrolled at Bennett’s. “It’s the only place I’ve ever worked.” But the salon ran into financial trouble. She arrived one morning to find the front door padlocked. The developer of Renton Center, Robert Edwards, worked out a deal that allowed her to manage the shop. In late 1962, she bought the salon outright. She built a flourishing business and gave a generation of hairstylists a start.
The fight is on to gather more signatures for a petition designed to keep the downtown Renton library where it is over the Cedar River. Stuart Avery, the spokesperson for the citizens group effort, received word March 2 from Renton City Clerk Bonnie Walton that the group was short 1,442 valid signatures. The group needs 6,375 valid signatures to certify the petition. The petition asks that any library improvements for a downtown library must occur at the existing library location and not at any other location unless the alternate proposed location for a downtown library is approved by a simple majority vote of Renton voters. The petition group had submitted 7,263 signatures. More than 900 signatures were from people not registered to vote. Almost 900 signatures were also invalid because they were from people who didn’t live in Renton. This weekend the citizen group of volunteers will attempt to collect the addiStuart Avery tional signatures required in what they are calling a “Super Saturday” canvassing drive. Volunteers are asked to meet outside the library at 100 Mill Ave. at 9 a.m., Saturday, March 10. Several people in the all-volunteer group met Monday night and decided that asking people whether they are registered to vote in the City of Renton would be key in their renewed efforts. “The canvassing campaign will be going to residential neighborhoods within city limits, so that should help with a better ratio of valid signatures as opposed to retail venues, which have a mixed traffic and less control,” said Avery. The group intends to collect about 2,000 signatures by Monday to be safe. Renton resident Richard Bray found out about the petition just three weeks ago. He and his family, which includes five children, have