OLIVE - The sun comes up slow over Happy Corner — the crossroads of 433rd Street S and Highway 33 east of Drumright — where a black-and-white trailer stands out against black-jack oak forest. Parked across from the store in a well gravelled lot, the interior is two-thirds barbershop, one-third western boutique.
Inside, Jacque Burklin cleans the mirrors, sweeps stray hair from the floor, and sets her tools in order, ready for her next client — she prefers the term “client” over customer, saying, “Everyone is so much more than a customer to me.”
She and her husband created this barbershop themselves — no lockeddown location, no landlord, just wheels supporting her dream. She calls it B&B Cowboy Cuts & Razor Shaves, a mobile barbershop and handmade product line that blends ranch life with her life-long craft.
Licensed since 2011, Burklin began her career at Sports Clips before stepping away to help her husband run their ranch.
“My husband retired me once we bought a ranch to help get it going,” she said.
Five years later, with the ranch running smooth, she missed the rhythm of work.
When she looked into returning, she found the local cosmetology field “pretty saturated.” So last year she turned toward barbering, went back to school and is now a dual-licensed professional in cosmetology and barbering.
She considered a mobile shop and one discovery changed everything.
“There’s only one other in our state,” she said. “She took a box truck … I got the mindset — well if that truck breaks down, then her business is done until she gets it fixed.”
Burklin found an old cargo trailer that had once been a salon, gutted it, and rebuilt it from the floor up.
“I wanted that European-mounted bowl because of my height — twisted over washing people’s hair for the next 30 years seriously,” she said.
The Teal leopard paint of the old trailer gave way to wood, leather, and steel — her “western barbershop” vision taking shape.
Now she spends most weekdays at Happy Corner.
“I’m going to set up … Monday through Wednesday for walk-ins,” she said. “Thursday I plug in at the ranch and do appointments … I’m able to accommodate anytime — if someone needs a super early appointment I can; if they need a later appointment … I can.”
The ranch, by Oklahoma directions, sits “four miles south … over on 151st.”
Every third weekend she travels to markets — Oilton on Saturday, Bristow Tractor Supply on Sunday.
“As winter creeps in, I’ll be setting up at the ranch more and more and Happy Corner less and less,” she said. “But I’ll still be found at Happy Corner on nice weather days.”
She keeps the rest for her horses.
“I’m a horse girl,” she said. “I’m not ready for this to be my entire life yet … I still ride with the same girls I’ve been riding with since I was nine years old.”
Her farm helps supply her craft. “We have large cattle until we can get the fencing situated … 320 acres and a fence that needs some work before they can get standard sized cattle grazing. In the meantime, they maintain miniature cattle … miniature Belted Galloway, miniature Angus, miniature Herefords” she said. “I raise goats and sell goats and goat milk … I make all my products and everything I use … I don’t have to put chemicals on y’all anymore.”
From those ingredients she makes soaps, creams, and shave products. “I do a shave bar … aftershaves … pre-shave oil … mango butter … beeswax,” she said. “Bugs hate that line.” Her Western Merlot bar, scented “like leather,” is a steady favorite.
She prefers the barber’s side of the trade. “I lean on my barber side because I prefer working on men,” she said. “The only thing that separates cosmetologists from barbers — cosmetologists can’t use the razor and barbers can … I’m not shabby at it either.”
One client told her, “Typically when I shave I break out, but when you do it I never break out because of the good stuff you’re using.”
This writer can attest. I’ve still got my neck intact.
Burklin keeps the operation simple. “It runs $15 a day to run it,” she said, mostly generator fuel. “I’m not paying electricity or water … the water tank we fill … so that costs nothing.” She opens at nine and closes when the last client steps down from the chair. “I typically leave when the last cowboy rides away … 7:30 at night I’m happy to do it.”
Across Creek and Payne counties, her trailer has become a familiar landmark — part barbershop, part ranch stand, part small-town success story. Everything about it reflects the woman who built it: self-made, unhurried, and steady as a rider on a good horse waiting for the next sunrise.