When JoAnn Buck finds something she likes, she sticks with it. She was a founding member of the Taylorsville Arts Council back in 1996 and is still active in the group. She’s lived in her same Taylorsville home since 1965. And JoAnn has been styling hair since the 1940s – although she didn’t start getting paid for it until Kennedy was in the White House.

Taylorsville resident JoAnn Buck styles hair at two area senior centers, four days a week. (Carl Fauver/City Journals) 

 Her one exception to the “stick with it” rule? Buck (actually Spencer, back then) was not going to miss out on attending the shiny, new Granger High School. She wasn’t about to “stick with” her old one.

“They gave us the option to remain at Granite High School for our senior year or to shift to the brand-new school,” Buck explained. “A lot of my classmates wanted to remain at Granite. But I, and several of my friends, didn’t want to miss out on the new school. Plus, Granger High was much closer to our Taylorsville home.”

Among the friends who joined Buck on that move to the new school (the one, by the way, that was torn down and replaced more than a decade ago, due to old age) were classmates Jeanne Jensen and Joyce Parsons. Back then they shared the same last name, because they’re twin sisters. And, to this day, Parsons and Jensen still get together with their classmate every Saturday, in Buck’s Taylorsville home, to get their hair styled.

There are no photos of Taylorsville resident JoAnn Buck doing this during her first decade as a professional hairdresser. Back then, she says it was against the law for a female stylist to cut men’s hair. (Carl Fauver/City Journals) 

 “I’ve known Jeanne and Joyce since we were in elementary school together,” Buck said. “I actually styled their hair back then – in the 1940s. I’ve just always loved doing it. Of course, I hadn’t gone to beauty school back then – and wasn’t getting paid for it yet.”

Born Feb. 20, 1941, Buck was in diapers on Pearl Harbor Day (12.7.41). She lived in Taylorsville then… and, except for a two-year stint when her dad moved the family to California and back again, Buck has lived in Taylorsville almost ever since.

“Everyone in Taylorsville I either know… am related to… or both,” she likes to say.

The only other time Buck strayed from Taylorsville briefly was in the fall of 1959, when she found her way into a Utah State University dorm in Logan. But that proved to not be a great fit – and she was soon back in Taylorsville.

“I was studying business at USU and just didn’t enjoy it as much as I liked styling hair,” she explained. “I had been hairdressing since I was a kid. I always cut my own hair. Once I went to a hair salon and someone did it for me for a high school prom. But I disliked it so much, I had to pull it out and redo it myself. So, I moved back home from Logan and soon enrolled at Darrell’s Beauty School in downtown Salt Lake.”

Taylorsville resident JoAnn Buck still had her maiden name, Spencer, when she graduated in the very first class of the original Granger High School, in 1959. (Photo courtesy JoAnn Buck) 

Like the “old” Granger High, that beauty school is also long gone. But not before Buck graduated in 1962 and launched a hairdressing career that continues today – still five-days-a-week, in three different locations. 

“I’ve been cutting hair at the Escalante at Coventry Senior Living Center (6898 S. 2300 East) since about 2000 – since it first opened,” she said. “I’m over there three days a week. Then, once a week, I do hair at Aspen Ridge West (Transitional Rehab, 5323 S. 700 West), in Murray. And I still enjoy doing Joyce and Jeanne’s hair every Saturday at my home.”

The same way Buck was styling hair at Coventry since the moment it opened, Buck has also been active on the Taylorsville Arts Council since day one.

“We formed the arts council the same year Taylorsville was incorporated, in 1996,” she explained. “There were several of us who just felt it was very important, in our brand-new city, to support the arts. I was the Taylorsville Arts Council Vice Chair when we first formed. I became council chair in 1999.”

You recently read about this year’s sixth rendition of Tombstone Tales in these pages. That free production – depicting the lives of deceased Taylorsville residents at their gravesites in the city cemetery – was the original brainchild of Mavis Steadman and co-creator, Helene Smith. Buck has been in charge of all the production costuming, for the six presentations in 1998, 2003, 2009, 2015, 2022 and 2025. The traditional production is a joint effort from the Taylorsville Arts Council and the city’s Historic Preservation Committee. 

JoAnn Buck was on the yearbook staff that produced this very first Granger High School yearbook in 1959. (Carl Fauver/City Journals) 

“I was at that very first meeting in 1998 when Mavis asked ‘Could we use the Taylorsville Cemetery for a theatrical production?’ and we thought it was a good idea,” Buck said. “In the early years, I scoured Goodwill Thrift Stores and Deseret Industries, searching for the perfect period piece clothing. But we discovered the clothes never fit very well. More recently, we’ve relied on the actors to find appropriate clothing. But I still round up all of the props. I was back at all three performance nights again this year, making sure everything was ready to go.” 

JoAnn and Jeff Buck were married in 1963 and had their first of two daughters the following year. Both daughters still live here in the Salt Lake Valley. Buck has three adult grandkids; but none are married – so no great grandchildren yet. Jeff Buck passed away “about 35 years ago. I’ve dated a few men over the years – but never wanted to bring one home. My grandson is my man.”

And speaking of men – that was an interesting quirk in Buck’s long and successful hairdressing career.

These 1959 Granger High School classmates of JoAnn Buck – twins Jeanne Jensen and Joyce Parsons – still get their hair done every Saturday in Buck’s Taylorsville home salon. (Photo courtesy JoAnn Buck) 

“It was against the law in Utah for women to cut men’s hair until the early 1970s,” Buck said. “My first male customers were my husband, father, two brothers and a brother-in-law. Men wore their hair much longer back then, so it wasn’t difficult. I’ve given a lot of mullet cuts in my career. For many years now, my number of male and female customers has been about 50/50.”

Buck ran her own JoAnn’s Beauty Salon in Taylorsville from 1963 to 1971. At its height, she had three employees and the four of them were tending to dozens of unruly heads every week.

“I took my young daughters to the shop for a time – and also found babysitters,” Buck said. “But eventually I just told my husband, ‘I’m closing the shop – my girls need me.’ That’s when I started doing hair in my home.”

After losing her husband, Buck worked outside the house for 25 years, for the Utah Food Industry Association. But she continued tending to hair after work and on weekends the entire time.

“When I attended college, I learned a lot,” Buck concluded. “But I have learned so much more standing behind this chair. A retired World War II nurse once told me all about how she succeeded in smuggling medicine behind enemy lines. I’ve learned about many of our world’s religions. And I once had a customer from Vietnam who clearly explained to me why I never wanted to live under a dictator or Communist rule. It’s been a wonderful education, behind this chair, from many different teachers.”