Abbey Ewing opened the door to her salon, still holding the broom she used to brush away the clippings from her last client.

      “So, what are we doing today?” she asks, as she ushers the next person to her swivel chair.  

      It’s a simple question, one that’s full of possibilities for anyone wanting change. It’s also a question Abbey had asked herself much of her professional life that, up until this year, had her contemplating endless possibilities. Now, at 32, the owner of Hair Candy salon in Spartanburg is on a path that will change the course of her life for herself and her family. Abbey is hoping to swap her scissors in for a pilot’s license.

      Abbey was born in El Salvador, adopted when she was five months old and raised in Boiling Springs in a loving family of 10. She was number seven, she said, basically in the middle of a houseful of siblings some of whom worked to earn their master’s and doctorate's degrees.

       “A few of my siblings are very educated. It raised the bar for me to want to go back to school,” she said.

      Because her family was large, Abbey paid her way in the world, supporting her own endeavors and dreams. So, when she finished high school she immediately got a job with a restaurant chain while working parttime in the hairstyling industry. From there, she was hired for a position in customer service for a large hotel chain and continued with the company until she turned 24. At that point, she had a child of her own and found security for the next couple of years working in the activities department for a skilled nursing facility.  

       All the while, being a Type A in her working life, Abbey kept her foot in the hairstyle profession. By 2018, she decided to take the plunge and open her own salon that she lovingly branded Hair Candy.

      “I worked really hard,” she said. “Dedication is the biggest thing. It takes so much of your time. You have to execute (many things at once), do inventory, do the marketing, the bookings and then the service,” she said.

      With a young son at home, Abbey was motivated to continue growing her company with the support of her life partner, David T.  Then the pandemic hit in 2020 and everything in her industry changed. Hair stylists were not considered essential workers and were forced to close shop. Abbey felt the impact of that financial loss and decided then and there that she wanted a more stable profession should something unforeseen happen again in the future.

      “We shut down for a brief amount of time, then reopened. It gave me a new outlook. I always knew I needed something else to secure myself,” she said.

      Abbey said growing up near the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport, her family used to go there often to watch planes coming in and going out. In fact, it was at that very airport that Abbey and a number of her siblings were brought home to their new family when they were adopted.

      Though she estimates she has flown on a plane less than a dozen times in her life, the thrill never left her. Abbey loves to travel and expects that is why she was bent on working on her pilot’s license. But first things first. Abbey, who is use to hard work, wanted to start the process from the ground up. She got a job at the airport this past summer, pushing wheelchairs for airline guests. Then, she was hired as a ramp agent where she assists with luggage, marshalling planes on the runway and communicating with the pilots and airline attendants. Achieving that goal was a huge move in the right direction, she said.  “The more I work as a ramp agent, the more I get comfortable communicate with the pilots,” Abbey said. “But I need to do one more thing: Becoming one.”

      The next steps for Abbey require going to flight school next fall to pursue her career in aviation and potentially moving up to commercial pilot. But more than likely, she explained, she will initially become a private pilot to gain more experience.

“On the tarmac it is very peaceful. You just sit there and watch airplanes when they come in. It’s just fun to watch,” she said.

      In the meantime, Abbey continues working seven days a week alternating between her hair salon and the airport, mapping out what the next few years of her life will look like. She gets excited talking about the goal she set not just for herself but for her son, who she hopes will one day follow in her footsteps. The question for a person who makes such lofty goals, she said, is how badly do you want something and how willing are you to go the distance?

“I’m very willing,” she said.