AMERICUS, Ga. — On any given day during much of James “Soapy” Herndon’s ongoing, 62-year run as a barber, passersby might have spotted his shop filled not with clients but with Secret Service agents.
For decades, after his time in the White House, Jimmy Carter was a regular customer, with just 10 miles separating the barbershop in downtown Americus and the Carter compound in Plains.
“The phone would ring and I would hear, ‘Soapy, President Carter needs a haircut.’ And I would say, ‘Well, send him on.’ And I would get nervous because, see, I didn’t want him to have to wait,” said Herndon, who goes by a high school nickname that he still “can’t figure out how I got.”
