Kenneth Shuler

Kenneth Shuler died early on Sunday morning, October 11, 2026, in his sleep. Garrett Shuler said his father had been dealing with health challenges, but no specific cause of death was released.

The school shared the news on social media, and South Carolina television stations including WIS, WRDW, Fox Carolina and WACH reported it on October 13 and 14. Garrett Shuler said the school would continue to pursue his father's vision and asked students and instructors to honor the legacy. The school statement called Shuler a mentor and encourager who measured his own success by that of his students. Funeral arrangements had not been publicly detailed in the first news reports.

Kenneth Shuler grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina. His son later said he never dreamed of becoming a master barber. After school he enrolled in barber college in Greenville and, by 1958 according to the school's account of his career, was working as a barber. His first long stretch of shop work was in Myrtle Beach, where he stayed for more than eight years and built a strong local following before moving into school ownership.

In 1968 Shuler purchased Capital Barber College in Columbia, South Carolina. The school evolved into the Kenneth Shuler School of Cosmetology. Over the following decades it grew into a multi-campus operation; news reports after his death described eight campuses in South Carolina offering cosmetology and related programs such as esthetics.

Shuler was active in trade associations. He served as president of the South Carolina branch of the Associated Master Barber Beauticians of America from 1969 to 1970, of the South Carolina Barber's Association from 1970 to 1971, of the National Association of Barber Schools from 1984 to 1986, and of the South Carolina Association of Cosmetology Schools from 2001 to 2003. He was also a member of groups including the National Hairdressers Cosmetology Association and the National Accrediting Commission of Cosmetology Arts and Sciences.

On June 11, 2014, Senator John Courson presented him with the Order of the Palmetto at the Kenneth Shuler headquarters in Columbia. The award is South Carolina's highest civilian honor. School profiles from later years described him as still closely involved in student activities, curriculum and training.

Shuler's public life was centered on the school and on South Carolina's beauty industry. His son Garrett Shuler became vice president of the Kenneth Shuler School of Cosmetology and spoke for the family when his father died. Further details of Shuler's private life, including a spouse's name if any, were not set out in the obituaries that followed his death.

Shuler left a chain of cosmetology schools that for decades trained hairdressers, estheticians and other beauty professionals across South Carolina, and an industry reputation as a mentor who treated student success as the measure of his own. The Order of the Palmetto recognized that lifetime of service to the state's beauty education sector. Colleagues and the school community remembered the saying attributed to him, that he never worked a day in his life because he loved the work, as a shorthand for the culture he tried to build.