In Newton, Illinois, the salon chair is more than a seat for a haircut—it’s a place for stories, a space for healing, and a cornerstone of community. And if you’re sitting in one of those chairs at Shear Madness, odds are you’re in the hands—and heart—of Laura Klingler, Class of 1995, who has spent three decades doing far more than styling hair. She’s been building a life, nurturing a business, and giving love, in the truest sense of the word, to children, clients, and community alike.

Laura knew early what she wanted. “I have pictures of me putting rollers in my grandpa’s hair,” she says, smiling. “He was the sheriff here in Jasper County. When he retired, he’d let me ‘work’ on him—and I knew even then that I wanted to do hair.”

She was barely out of high school when she made that vision a reality. While many of her classmates were headed off to college, Laura enrolled in cosmetology school and opened a small salon in the back of her parents’ house by the time she was 19. “My friends were still away at college,” she recalls. “And there I was—working, building something. That part was hard, not having them around. But it also felt right.”

Six months in, the demand outgrew the space. She moved into a rented storefront and expanded the business. “We had tanning at the time,” she laughs, “because it was the early 2000s, and that’s what you did.” But Shear Madness was more than a trend—it was a budding local institution.

Ten years ago, she and her husband took the leap and bought the building that now houses the salon. It’s a space alive with hometown energy. “We rent booths to five stylists—four of whom also graduated from Newton. It’s a little reunion every day,” she says.

Next door, another Newton classmate runs an insurance agency. A few doors down are rental units that provide additional income. Together, Laura and her husband have built not just a business, but a nest—a foundation that reflects equal parts hustle, heart, and hope.

And still, Laura kept stretching that heart. Six years ago, she and her husband became foster parents. “We always knew we wanted kids,” she says softly. “When that didn’t happen naturally, we just... we pivoted.” Their first placements were two children, then a set of twins who stayed with them for two and a half years. After a brief pause, they got the call: three sisters were going to be separated unless someone stepped in.

“My husband said, ‘We can’t let that happen,’” she remembers. “And now here we are—three years later, in the process of adopting them.”

The girls, aged school-age to young adult, fill Laura’s home with the kind of energy only siblings can bring. “It keeps us hopping,” she says with a grin. “But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” Even the twins they had to let go still FaceTime regularly. “We stayed friends with their mom,” Laura adds. “We still get to see them. It’s hard to let go, but that’s part of fostering. You do it anyway.”

That sense of “doing it anyway” has defined Laura’s life—and Jasper County has returned her courage with kindness in moments of both celebration and struggle.

About five years ago, Laura was diagnosed with melanoma. At the time, she and her husband were caring for the toddler twins. “I had surgery to remove it from my back and had all my lymph nodes removed,” she says. “But it was my clients—my clients—who showed up every night with meals.”

It wasn’t a church or a nonprofit. It wasn’t a formal care train. It was people from her salon chair—people whose hair she’d cut for years, people who had become family—who rallied in the quiet, ordinary way small towns do.

“When we first got the twins, two days before Christmas, we had nothing,” she recalls. “By the end of the day, people had stopped by with diapers, clothes, everything we needed. Word just got out.”

Her voice catches for a moment. “That doesn’t happen in the suburbs,” she says. “But here, it does.”

Laura’s ties to Newton run generations deep. Her father, the youngest of 12 children, was born and raised here. “We either knew everyone or were related to them,” she says, not joking. Her husband, also a Jasper County native and a Newton graduate from the Class of 2000, comes from a big family as well. “He’s younger than me,” she notes, “but we’ve made this our place.”

And what a place they’ve made. Inside Shear Madness, there’s more than the hum of blow dryers and the occasional laughter from children in the back. There’s a spirit—one rooted in friendship, resilience, and belief in the good of people.

“This year marks 30 years in business,” Laura says with the kind of quiet astonishment that comes from suddenly realizing just how long you’ve been living your dream. “I still love it. I really do.”

She still works alongside stylists she considers family, with clients who’ve been with her from the start. “I’ve done some of them since day one,” she says. “And we’ve grown up together. We’ve cried in that chair, laughed in that chair, shared life in that chair.”

The future? She doesn’t have a vision board. She’s too grounded for that. “Day by day,” she says. “Raise the girls. Do what I love. Be present.”

If she could whisper advice to her younger self—the girl with the rollers and the dreams—it would be simple. “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” she says. “And do what you know you’re meant to do.”

In a world obsessed with going bigger, louder, and farther, Laura Klingler’s story is a soft, steady reminder that meaning often comes from standing still—rooted in a place you love, doing the work you were born to do, surrounded by people who show up when it matters most.

This is Newton. This is Jasper County. And this is what hometown pride looks like when it’s lived every day.