After 42 years of making Perry beautiful, Gina Coenen styled the hair of her last few customers Friday afternoon at Your Spa at 1320 Second St. in downtown Perry.
Her many friends and well wishers threw a retirement party for Coenen on her last day in the beauty shop, with cake and punch and a festive balloon.
“It’s hard,” she said. “My customers have been real close. We’re like family. We’ve been together a long time and grown old together.”
You get to know a lot of people in more than 50 years of hair styling, Coenen said. The shop was called Elegans Beauty Salon when she started working in 1975 with Sandy Dugan of Perry, who opened the shop in 1972 above the old Perry State Bank building.
“I was a little reluctant to retire because I enjoy my job and all,” Coenen said, “but my husband’s been retired four years, so he’s been anxious for me to call it quits. I’ve been here 42 years in this salon, and it’s time for me to move on.”
Coenen has worked all these years with Dugan, who stills does hair at Your Spa, and for many years with Jane Allen, whose daughter, Kari Allen of Perry, said it is sad to see the beauty team breaking up.
“Gina has cut and styled many people’s hair and will truly be missed,” Kari Allen said. “My mom has worked with Gina for over 35 years at the same shop.”
Coenen said she is ready to trade in her scissors and blow dryer for a camping chair, part of her retirement plans with her husband.
“We might do some camping,” she said. “We’ve got two little grandkids that are in sports, and so we’re following them around.”
The Coenens lived in Perry and saw two sons graduate from Perry High School.
“My husband worked at Oscar Mayer for a long time and when that closed down, he went down that way,” she said, pointing toward the Des Moines metro. “We moved to Grimes right after our youngest boy graduated.”
They split their commutes for about 25 years, and now both are free to travel together.
“I’ve got three more customers this afternoon,” Coenen said, with a glance down at her schedule. “It’s been good. Perry’s been a good home for us.”
