Staff photo by Wallyce Todd
Deby Duque, Gayle Powell and Cynthia Stone enjoy being together at the older sisters’ salon for conversation, sisterly advice, tears, laughter, and jewelry critiques.

•Gayle Powell, Deby Duque and Cynthia Stone love the river town.

By WALLYCE TODD
Staff Writer

Editor’s Note: Today, begins a five-week tourism series. “What to Do in a Day: Fair Bluff” can be seen on the front of today’s C Section.

They weren’t born in Fair Bluff. Yet the oldest town in Columbus County has become the place where Gayle Powell and her two younger sisters, Deby Duque and Cynthia Stone, have found places to work, live and love.

In fact, it’s love that has brought them together in the river town, and it’s that bond that acts as the adhesive in their relationship, says Deby. Gayle has lived in Fair Bluff for a dozen years or so. She owns the Main Street beauty salon, Gayle’s Classic Creations.

Deby moved to Columbus County in 2004. In 2005, she earned her certification as a nail technician. In 2006, she and Gayle renovated and expanded the beauty salon. It became a two-sided business called Deby’s Tip Toes, complementing Gayle’s hair salon. Most folks now know the business as “Gayle and Deby’s.”

Cynthia – “Cindy” to her sisters and friends – rounded out the trio in early 2006. She had been living in Bladen County. She works for Elvington Drugs, also on Main Street. In fact, the sisters are only about four doors down from each other each day. Cindy couldn’t be happier with her employer: “Mr. P.L. (Plan Elvington) is very easy to work with. I really appreciate who he is as a person.”

The impetus for the “gathering of the girls” in one central location was the death of their mom and the women’s desire to shorten the distance between themselves.

“We wanted to be close to each other,” Deby said. “We wanted to stay as close as glue. After parents pass away, families can drift apart. We don’t want that.”

The move may not have had as much appeal to the three sisters had Fair Bluff not been a town where they experienced such warmth and welcome or where they’d not enjoyed the community spirit so much.

The Lumber River weaves itself through the small town in such a way that its blackwater and cypress-lined sides are a defining feature to this historical hub. Cindy recalls: “I came to Fair Bluff right when Gayle met Alex and moved here. I just really liked the town. It was small and welcoming. The people were just so friendly.”

The “baby” of the family smiles as she affirms, “I’m not a big-city person. I’m a small-town girl.”

All three women acknowledge that their mother was influential in the women they’ve become. “Our mom was a no-nonsense person. She taught us how to work hard,” says Gayle. “She was firm. She was strict. She didn’t like laziness.

“She was feisty,” Gayle recollects. “Good gracious, she was feisty, but gosh, I loved her.”

All three sisters knew they weren’t rich when they were growing up. However, their mother taught them to have self-respect. Gayle remembers: “No matter how little we had, she always took whatever we had and made us feel like we had an abundance.”

The beloved Fair Bluff beautician continues: “She’d tell us: ‘There’s nothing wrong with being poor, but you’ve got to be clean and poor. Take care of what you do have.”

Gayle and Deby have taken that call to be stewards of their resources to heart. So has Cindy, each in her own way. The older sisters renovated the building that houses their businesses, primarily incorporating their own time, talents and sweat. The salons are an unexpected oasis of relaxation and pizzazz behind a brick façade that barely hints at the beauty inside.

Deby used some of Gayle’s plastic hair caps to give the “Island Breeze Blue” walls a variegated faux finish. Deby and Gayle complete each other’s thoughts as they say: “We tried to create with the color and the ambience in the salon an adult atmosphere in an environment that invites you to be relaxed to know that you’re the center of our attention.”

However, their salon is more than just business to the women. “My and Deby’s customers have become like family and friends,” Gayle says. It’s not all about money, it’s about caring for each other.

“Cindy is the same way at the drugstore … she’ll get in her car and deliver prescriptions to people.”

Deby’s desire for her grandchildren to be safe and provided for in an environment that accepted them for who they are prompted her to move out of California. Fair Bluff beckoned to her because “I wanted them to be able to eat Sunday dinners with their aunts and families.”
The woman known locally for treating toes in such a way that those receiving pedicures say they feel pampered and ministered to is willing to acknowledge that not everything’s perfect in Fair Bluff.

“It’s been good, some bad,” she says about her experience in the town. “I think there’s good in all towns and bad in all towns. But most of all, we’ve had a good experience.”
The blessings of the river town definitely outweigh the burdens for all three sisters. Together, the sisters summarize:

“You really can have everything you could want here,” Deby says. “If you like country living, it’s a great place to be. If you want to go to the city, then Wilmington, Myrtle Beach and Florence, S.C. are only about an hour away.”

“I don’t ever see myself moving out of the Fair Bluff area. The biggest city could not pull me out,” says Deby.

Cindy states, “We moved around a lot as kids. I like living here.”

Gayle concludes: “I love being able to walk down the street and say ‘Hello’ to everyone that passes by. Fair Bluff is like coming home. (We’re) finally home.”