Copper Tree adding massage school | Local | news-journal.com - Longview News-Journal

[massage]

Downtown Longview is now home to a massage therapy school. Copper Tree Retreat: School of Massage could start offering classes toward the end of October or early November, depending on enrollment

Copper Tree Retreat Massage and Med Spa opened on Fredonia Street in downtown Longview about 3 1/2 years ago. About a year ago, the business moved a few blocks away, into the former Chase bank building at Fredonia and South streets. Owners Hailey and Jason Davis renovated the building, and it opened in late 2021 with a retail boutique and new services.

Now, the business is expanding again.

"We decided to open a school upstairs," Hailey Davis said. "We've been planning it probably for the last two years ..."

"There's actually a big demand for massage therapy and massage therapists," she continued, explaining that COVID-19 made it harder for students to finish massage therapy school because of all the restrictions when the virus first began circulating in 2020. "There were just not as many coming out of the schools."

She estimated the state is home to a couple of dozen massage therapy schools. Her school will be the only one operating in Longview. The next closest schools, and the only two others in this area, are in Smith County, according to information on the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The state agency licenses a variety of professions and schools, including massage therapy schools.

Davis said she started the massage therapy program that previously operated at Panola College but has since closed.

"It was a need, and I know that we're always looking for massage therapists," she said of School of Massage at Copper Tree Retreat.

A massage therapy license offers a lot of opportunities, she said. The 500-hour program can be completed in three months in daytime classes or about eight months in evening classes. She said students can start classes right out of high school if they're 18 years old.

"It's a better side business to be able to make your own hours," Davis said, and it's good for people to have that license while they're working their way through college. They make better pay, she said, than working at a restaurant.

Courses include anatomy and physiology, health and hygiene, kinesiology, business and ethics, massage skills, some pharmacology, a 50-hour internship and more.

For more information, call Copper Tree at (903) 230-1911 or visit the business at 116 E. South St.

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