The Weekly Newspaper of El Segundo
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 110, No. 32 - August 12, 2021
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.....................14
Classifieds............................4
Crossword/Sudoku.............4
Entertainment......................5
Legals............................11-13
Obituaries.............................2
Pets......................................16
Police Reports.....................5
Real Estate.......................7-9
Sports.............................. 3,10
Weekend
Forecast
Local Artist Brings Harmony,
Peace and Wellness to El Segundo
Rhonna del Rio combines her skill in architecture with her passion for painting to create works of healing. For Rhonna’s story, see yellow box below.
Dale Snowberger is not Ready
to Ride-Off into the Sunset
By Duane Plank
El Segundo resident Dale Snowberger is
gearing up to celebrate his 70th birthday
on August 16. So, is Snowberger going to
sit back on a porch rocking chair, gaze out
indolently at the comings and goings in his
neighborhood, incessantly check his mailbox,
sanctum where a man can receive the highest
level of barbering services in a setting that
compliments this ancient art. ... Barbers of
former times were also surgeons and dentist,
called barber/surgeons.” And, yes, women too
can have their styled inside the “sanctum”
of the Tonsorial Parlor.
So, what is Snowberger’s back-story? He
grew up hunting and fishing and schooling
in rural Ohio. His brother, Ronald, who was
17 years older than Dale, somehow ended
Healing Through Art in the
City of El Segundo
By Kiersten Vannest
Adorning the walls of beloved local
spots along Main Street and inside many
residents’ homes, you may notice a distinct
art style, one with the exactness of a right
angle mixed with emotional curves, usually
depicting a woman. These pieces are
the work of El Segundo resident Rhonna
del Rio, and this is her journey from a
highly successful architecture career into
one of imperfection and self-expression.
From a young age, del Rio found
herself drawn to architecture. Her dad
was an architect, and she aspired to do
what he did. As a petite woman with
few female architects as role models, del
Rio found it difficult to picture herself in
her father’s role. It took encouragement
from her sister, who bought her a book
on architecture, and belief in herself to
kickstart her career.
“In the summer of eighth grade…I
remember every Sunday, I would pick up
the newspaper and go straight to the real
estate pages and copy all the elevations
and all the floor plans,” says del Rio,
explaining that she still has this personal
project to this day. From there, her creativity
blossomed. She began creating her
own floor plans and designing her own
rooms and buildings.
After graduating in the top four of her
class in college, she jumped straight into
and await the arrival of his next Social
Security check?
Nope.
Because August 16 falls on a Monday
this year and happens to coincide with one
of Stoneberger’s off-work days, who knows
how he will celebrate his first day as a septuagenarian?
But you can bet he will not be
lollygagging around.
During our phone interview, the owner of
the El Segundo Tonsorial Parlor, located on the
west side of Grand Avenue, under the Grand
Hotel, said that his two daughters, Christin,
and Meghan, had been planning a surprise
birthday party to mark the occasion. But with
the advent of stricter COVID-19 mandates
and the uncertainty of holding celebratory
gatherings, it looks like his upcoming birthday
will be noted with the sitting for a family
portrait and a catered dinner.
If his birthday had fallen on a Tuesday thru
Saturday, there is a good possibility he would
have spent the day cutting and styling hair.
Even as he approaches seventy, Snowberger
said that he has no intention of retiring.
Asked how long he might continue working,
he said, “until they tell me to step away
from the chair.” He mentioned that at the
advent of the COVID lockdown 17 months
or so ago, and subsequent shuttering of his
business, he looked at it as an opportunity
to take a long-deserved vacation.
But as the lockdown stretched into a second
and third month, Snowberger said that
he realized how much he missed the daily
interaction with his clients. He said that his
first thought was that he missed the social
aspect of hair-cutting and then concluded that
“I also miss (the clients) money!”
So, what is a ‘Tonsorial Parlor?’ One
definition: “A tonsorial parlor is an inner See Dale Snowberger, page 14
See Rhonna del Rio, page 11
Friday
Sunny
75˚/65˚
Saturday
Sunny
74˚/65˚
Sunday
Sunny
75˚/67˚