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Two Stories touch hearts at Escondido Salon
Gary Warth
Staff Writer
Kristi Wilkinson of Poway was driving to
one of her many appointments in early June when she
caught a glimpse of her hair in the mirror and
quietly lamented about never having time to get a
trim and do other little thinks for herself.
Moments later her mobile phone rang. He
friend Melanie Tucker was calling to say she had
nominated Wilkinson for a free makeover, and she had
won.
Kevin Rohrig of Escondido received a
similar call. On Friday, both went to The Loft Hair
Design in Escondido for a full day of pampering,
trimming, styling and dyeing.
Loft Hair Design owner Shawna Cruise
said the makeover contest was a way to celebrate the
salon’s recognition as one of the top 200
fastest-growing salons in America. The Loft’s
challenge to write a 200-word essay on why people
who get a makeover garnered many worthy entries,
but the extraordinary stories of Wilkinson and Rohrig
stood out from the typical requests from stresses
out mother with little time to pamper themselves.
Wilkinson is a physical therapist and a
single mother raising a son, 11, she adopted from
Romania. Adding to her busy schedule are doctors
appointments related to her pregnancy with twins,
which is is carrying as a surrogate for a close
friend who cannot have a child of their own.
An then there is the work she does for
Tijuana orphanage, which wasn’t even mentioned in
the essay that won her the makeover.
As for Rohrig, he is living in the
Fellowship Center, a residential alcohol and drug
rehabilitation program in Escondido.
“It really is a good place,” he said.
“Was being 29 and being in a recovery house on my
list? Not so much.”
Rohrig said he took his last drink on
his birthday, Jan. 19. He also had not shaved or cut
his hair since then, saying he wants to focus on
more internal and spiritual issues.
Clean, sober, and with a new job and
plans to enroll in college to study engineering and
architecture, Rohrig said it is time for a new look
to go with his new life.
Two deserving stories
Cruise said she had planned to have just
one winner, but the two seemed so deserving, she had
to pick both.
“I don’t have much time to shop,”
Wilkinson said. “My friends sometimes buy me new
shoes when they see the ones I’m wearing.”
After a facial, manicure, trim and
highlighting, Wilkinson said she probably would go
out to dinner with her friend Tucker.
“Otherwise, I’m going to take my son out
for a date,” she said.
Wilkinson was working as a physical
therapist in Colorado when she saw a Denver Post
Article about overflowing orphanages in Romania. She
went to the country hoping to use her therapy skills
to help the children.
“I ended up moving over
there," she said.
“In 1997, I met a little boy when he was 2. I fell
in love with him. But I'm single, and they weren’t
allowing single women to adopt.”
Wilkinson kept her hopes up, and the law
eventually changed. She got final approval for
adoption in 2000 and returned with Lukas, now 11.
Still Helping
Wilkinson’s drive to help
orphans didn’t
end with Lukas. Working with Chaparral Elementary
School in Poway, which Lukas attends, Wilkinson
started a recycling program to raise money for
Orphanage Emmanuel in Tijuana.
“I thought, ‘How can we raise money at
the schools without pestering the parents?’ ” she
said. “So we started a recycling project at the
school, and now raise more than $1000 a year.”
At 40, Wilkinson has never had a child
of her own, but she stepped up when her friends
Brenan and Jane Staples, both teacher in Escondido,
tried unsuccessfully to adopt a child.
When her friend Brenan first talked to
her about being a surrogate , Wilkinson said no.
“But then I just continued to think
about it,” she said. “As I saw this man be
a teacher,
and I said his love for children, I thought, ‘I’m
going to do it.’ ”
Wilkinson said doctors usually do not
use surrogates older than 38, and she was 39 at the
time. They said she had a 1 percent changed of
conceiving. She not only proved them wrong, but is
pregnant with twin boys due in October.
A drinking problem
Rohrig nominated himself for a makeover
on a whim after seeing a flier for the contest in a
coffee shop.
On his essay, Rohrig wrote about a
drinking problem that started at 18. He dropped out
of college, worked in restaurants in bars, and
generally partied too much, her wrote.
“Due to my continued drinking and
partying over the last decade, I saw my life fall
apart during my 28th year,” he wrote.
“I crashed my truck, quit three
different jobs over the course of the year, allowed
my condo to go into foreclosure and blew off every
friend and family member I had.”
Sporting a mountain-man beard, Rohrig
and Cruise walked a few blocks from the Loft to
Bev’s Barbershop on Friday, where Bev Granger would
shave his beard.
“It’s my whirlwind media tour,” he
said
as a television camera followed him. “It’s my 15
minutes. I don’t know if I’m ready for it.”
Rohrig said he realized he should have
his ways Dec. 17. A Chargers game was on TV, and he
looked forward to the day at home alone with his
dog, drinking, barbecuing and watching football.
The day began with bloody
Mary's and
ended with an empty liquor cabinet. Before going
bar-hopping that night, Rohrig said, he stopped to
look at himself in the bathroom mirror.
“My face was bloated,” he said. “My eyes
were red. And when I look into my eyes, I saw
nothing. Loneliness. Fear. Complete emptiness. I
just saw a human shell. There was no soul left.”
He doesn’t even remember watching the
whole game, the whole point of the day, he said.
Rohrig when to the store and bought many
cans of soup, knowing what he faced the new week.
For the next several days, he barely moved from his
brother’s couch, sick to his stomach and able to
hold down only liquids.
Finally detoxed, he checked himself into
the Fellowship Center, where he is today. His dog is
living with his brother.
“My life is like a country song,” Rohrig
jokes. “Lost my car, lost my dog…”
The life is back in his eyes, and as the
beard came off, a healthy and handsome young man
emerged.
By that afternoon, as vintage cars and
crowds began appearing outside the salon for Friday
night Cruisin’ Grand, the staff and customers at the
Hair Loft were oohing and ahhing at Rohrig and
Wilkinson, who modestly took it all in stride.
“I want to be here all the time,” Rohrig
said. “This has been a fabulous day.”
Stepping outside, a fellow resident of
the Fellowship stopped in his tracks at seeing Rohrig.
“What the hell?” he
said. “I didn’t
recognize you.”
Rohrig probably will get a lot of that
this week.
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