It Makes Their Hair Curl : School: Students and patrons of Main Street Cosmetology Center recoil at the thought of its threatened closure. Some are trying to prevent its demise.

Eva Haulsman, 80, has found friends here.

“We talk about wherever you’re going or whatever you’re doing. Sometimes we get a little bit close. It’s a form of therapy,” she said one recent day.

Margaret Ward, 62, has been coming here since 1962, when the place was called Bartmore Beauty College. The reason for her loyalty, she says slyly through a Scottish burr, is “the price is right. Plus I like all the girls.”

The place is the Main Street Cosmetology Center, 12965 Main St., in downtown Garden Grove. Outside, it’s a busy March afternoon, but in here, the scent of hair spray in the air, the stories and camaraderie recall another era, before unisex hair salons with Milli Vanilli on the speakers and $30 haircuts.

It’s an era that may soon be ending, as the Garden Grove United School District, which has operated the beauty school since 1969, is planning to close the facility after June 14 and consolidate it with another cosmetology program at the Chapman Cosmetology Center, 11852 Knott Ave., in the western part of the city.

“There’s just one reason for closing it,” said Roger B. Braasch, director of adult education for the district. “Not enough students.”

A relatively robust economy seems to have clipped enrollment, he added. “It’s because unemployment is so low. It’s easy to get a fairly good-paying job. This is a program that takes 1,600 hours to complete, and then it takes the better part of two years to build up a clientele after you graduate.

“It’s the same in other parts of the county,” he said. “Traditionally, as times get better, we have fewer students in the program.”

For the students and customers of the beauty school, though, times seem pretty good right now. Good enough, anyway, that they’ve launched a protest and fund-raising effort to try to save it.

Shellee Smith, 29, of Anaheim, is a student who’s learning some politics along with her razor cuts. She organized a protest March 2 on Main Street of students and patrons, and is talking with district officials and others in an attempt to keep the center open.

“They’re hearing my squawking,” she said. In addition to trying to build some political pressure through calls to school board members and officials--even a visit to the City Council--she’s got her eye on a fund-raiser.

In addition to saving the school and the teachers’ jobs, keeping the center open would save the patrons some money. “I’ve got a lot of lady customers who have been coming here for 20 years,” said Cathy C. Meyer, supervising instructor at the center. “A lot are on fixed incomes.” They can get a haircut for $4, a shampoo and set for $3.50, and a permanent wave as inexpensively as $10.95.

But they get more than that at the center--they get companionship and a kind of counseling, Smith said.

“You hear it all, you hear everything. They don’t hold back. People pretty much say anything. Nothing would surprise me. We get a lot of older women here, and I think they enjoy being around youth, being around these crazy girls,” she said, laughing.

But Braasch said, “We’ve been advertising since October, and we just haven’t gotten enough response.” He estimates that the Main Street Center has about 28 or 29 regular students, and “we like to have 56.”

If the district sticks by its decision to close the school, some students may transfer to Chapman.

“To go to a private school, it’ll cost them almost $5,000,” said Meyer. And some of the regular customers may follow, they say.

And what will Margaret Ward do if the doors finally close in June after a regular routine of trims and tints and telling your troubles that dates back to the Kennedy Administration?

“Cry,” she said.