New Career in Newport,
Forcier Retires Clippers

After 18 years of cutting hair at Ken’s Barber Shop, Sue Forcier Jacobs is putting down the clippers. Really.

For the last eight of those years, Forcier Jacobs kept cutting hair around the demands of getting first a bachelor’s and then a master’s degree in counseling.

She even kept coming back to the Merchants Row barbershop Saturdays for the past seven months, after putting in a full week of work at her new job, as an emergency crises clinician at Northeast Kingdom Human Services in Newport.

Forcier-Jacobs said this week that this Saturday, March 22, will be her final day at Ken’s.

It’s been a tiring seven months of commuting, with Sue heading south weekends, and her husband Ken Jacobs driving up to their small apartment in Derby during the week. The couple is selling their home in Sharon, and hopes "to buy a little place up here," Forcier-Jacobs said.

Even though she grew up in the NE Kingdom, Forcier-Jacobs said it’s been tough to pull her roots out of Central Vermont.

"Central Vermont is where I raised my chidren, where my kids went to school, where I was involved with a lot of civic community programs.

Now, she said, she is finding ways to get involved in her new community.

Since graduating this spring from Antioch New England, with her master’s degree, Forcier-Jacobs has continued to work toward dual licensure as a clinical mental health counselor. She has already gained certification as a substance abuse counselor, she said.

This week, Forcier Jacobs expressed thanks to friends and clients here, for their support "both in the shop and in my continued career."

"What a journey it’s been," she said.