It was too nice a day to be inside getting a haircut. That’s how I spent part of Sunday, though. That’s how I met Omar Willis.
From a chance meeting, I heard a story worth sharing.
Willis, 24, is a hairstylist for Gene Juarez Salons & Spas. He works at Alderwood mall, where I rarely get a haircut. Two weeks ago, I missed an appointment at my usual Everett salon. When I called Gene Juarez on Sunday, Willis had an opening.
You know how those conversations go. A person you’ve never met is snip-snipping away. There’s time for idle chatter. This was no interview.
I held up my end of stranger chat by telling Willis about my children. It wasn’t until he was drying my hair that I mentioned I work for The Herald. Willis said he’d been mentioned in The Weekly Herald, the south Snohomish County paper operated by The Daily Herald Co.
I wondered whether I’d missed a business article about salons. That’s when Willis said he’d been a commencement speaker at his recent graduation from Edmonds Community College.
He said he’d soon be going to a four-year university, but planned to keep working at the salon.
After going home, I kept thinking about this ambitious young man. Gene Juarez is a busy, high-end salon. Willis is already skilled in a trade with plenty of demand.
He said he hoped to study communications and drama.
On the EdCC website I looked up his graduation speech. In it, he shared personal history. “In a way, my journey began in the 1960s,” he told fellow graduates June 17 at Everett’s Comcast Arena. The Lynnwood High School graduate earned his associate of arts degree in just one year.
Willis, who now lives in Mill Creek, said in his speech that his father, a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, had died in 2007. At 19, Willis thought he couldn’t afford college. He opted instead to become a hairstylist.
Willis was later surprised to learn that because his father was disabled by illness related to his military service, he wouldn’t have to pay tuition.
According to the state Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington community colleges, public colleges and universities are required to waive undergraduate tuition and fees for eligible dependents of 100 percent disabled veterans or those who died as a result of military service. The student must live in Washington and be between 17 and 26.
When I called Willis on Tuesday, he said he found out about the benefit “kind of by accident” when a college official told him he had a tuition waiver. “I pretended I knew what she was talking about,” he said. Willis said he had looked only at federal education benefits for military dependents.
The ticking clock on tuition benefits explains why Willis carried 27 credits his last quarter at EdCC. “It only lasts until I’m 26, so I’m trying to finish,” he said. That’s less than two years.
Resident tuition for one quarter at EdCC is $1,045 for 15 credits or $1,698 for 25 credits. At the University of Washington, full-time resident tuition will be about $3,500 per quarter this fall. Willis hopes to attend either UW or Western Washington University before losing the benefit.
“He’s trying to get as far as he can,” said Michele Graves, an EdCC spokeswoman who worked with Willis on his speech. “When he went back to school, he did it full bore.”
Graves said Willis’ grade-point average was 3.9. In his speech, Willis called that “respectable.”
Willis delivered the message that a person creates his or her own identity. “What really matters is the way that you define yourself, and that comes from what you do, your actions, and your choices,” he said in his speech.
It was by chance that I learned about the man wielding the scissors.
“He enjoys his job and is very successful at it,” Graves said. “He always wanted to be able to go to college. When he had the opportunity, he was just going to grab it.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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