Here's my story:
In July of 2019, my job sent me to Shreveport for three weeks. I posted up here asking what pool was available there, and got a lot of good responses. Bill Schick's place came up a few times, and I looked him up. He is apparently quite a well known cuemaker, and has a very nice old-school room there, so I decided to make that a stop. I brought with me a well used viper cue that I bought at a garage sale for $10, and it needed a tip. When I got to Bill's place and asked for him, the guy at the desk told me he'd go see if he was busy. I followed him to a door off to the side of the pool room, and half followed him inside. When the desk guy told Bill about me, and then Bill saw me at the doorway, he motioned me to come on in. I spent the next couple hours with Bill, just hanging out BSing, watching him clean up my ferrule, installing the new tip, and he even reshaped the shaft to be a taper and tip size that matched what I told him my regular playing cue has. He showed me a pair of custom scrimshaw cues he was working on, and handed both to me to look at. These were amazing pieces of art and I will tell you I was a little nervous holding them, considering what they were probably worth. And when it was time to go, he really didn't even seem to want to charge me for his work. The price he asked was less than what I could even buy a decent tip for up by where I'm from. I gave him double that and thanked him for sharing the time and his stories with me, and I still got one heck of a deal. I used that cue to win a local 9-ball tournament at Secrets during my stay there too.
Can't say enough good things about Bill Schick, and I'm glad this thread gives me the chance to pass that along.