Arkansas Native Rebecca Foster Now Calls Texas Home
Excerpt from Dallas Voyage Magazine June 5, 2019
I moved from Arkansas to Texas the summer after I turned 19. I was born and raised there and lived in the same house my entire life. Moving was definitely a transition. My parents were nearing retirement age (they’re a little older for how young I am). I have siblings significantly older than myself who have children and my parents wanted to be near them. Texas just so happened to be where they all lived with Fort Worth being central to all of them. I tend to use that as the reason my parents uprooted our entire life but I know that they knew what I was going through (even though I never outwardly admitted it) and needed to be physically removed from the situation because I was not doing so myself.
I was in and out of college, still allowing myself to see and stay in contact with someone who made me mentally unhealthy. I had always had an interest in hair but my dad was concerned that it would not be a lucrative career. He wanted me to have the college experience he did but my mind was somewhere else so I did not make the most out of it. Finally, after what felt like my 10th time re-enrolling, I did my research and found that I could actually make a decent living as a hairstylist.
In the meantime, I met the love of my life. We both worked at Buckle. When I first saw him I thought he was the sexiest human I’d ever seen! I still think so. To this day we are happily married and he balances out my high energy with being so laid back. I excelled in cosmetology school. I loved every bit of it. A lot of stylists hate cosmetology school but it was so refreshing for me to have something fun to do every day!
When I finished I started at Drybar, not really sure where to go from there. It got very repetitive and boring after a while. I knew I was meant for more in the industry. That’s when I reached out to a former instructor, Joelle Sullivan, and she referred me to Panther City Salon. I was fortunate enough to land under the hands of Heather Lankford-Young and Jacky Reyna for an apprenticeship program. I bounced between the two of them for a while until I eventually landed full time under Heather. A year later she’s pushing me out of my comfort zone and I’ve “graduated” from her mentorship. Since then I have been working behind the chair full time at Panther City and enjoying every second of it. I plan to create my own apprenticeship program much like the one Heather provided for me. I feel like it was the most beneficial step I have taken in my career and I think more up and coming stylists should do it.
I work at Panther City Salon and feel like I could not have made a better career move for myself. I specialize in blonding and hand-tied extensions. I find that both of them are therapeutic. I’m most proud of how far my career has evolved in the last year. It is a strange feeling evolving into full-blown adulthood. Having those realizations is kind of surreal.
I have told my husband this a few times. I felt like I was lucky in the sense that I fell into the perfect apprenticeship program. Then right around the time I completed it, Panther City chose to expand their business and relocate to a bigger and better location. This provided me the opportunity to expand my career independently with PCS. Not to mention my parents created the best atmosphere to grow up in. They provided me with everything a child could possibly imagine.
You can read the whole article here:
http://voyagedallas.com/interview/meet-rebecca-foster-hair-downtown-fort-worth/
Stylist Rebecca Foster