Sheena Dauphin Overcomes Obstacles to Succeed
It's not the average Cinderella story.
But it is, indeed, the story of a local woman dealing with difficult hurdles who, with the help of a fairy God mother of sorts and some dogged determination of her own, found a way to go to the ball.
Recently, against all odds, 24-year-old High Plains Technology Center Graduate Sheena Dauphin pushed the envelope of not only her commitment to school and self- improvement, she also stretched her creative bounds beyond what she thought she was capable of.
Dauphin was the winner of the recent State SkillsUSA Cabinetry Construction competition at Francis Tuttle in Oklahoma City. She will go on to compete nationally at the competition in Kentucky this summer, said High Plains Technology Center Spokeswoman Katie Shirley.
"She also won HPTC Construction Student of the Year this year," Shirley said.
The contest is not an easy one. Cabinet makers are given limited supplies to work with and have no idea what the assignment will be. The artists are given six hours to create and build, according to strict specs, the cabinet on the blueprint that is handed to them when they start the competition.
"I was shocked to be honest. At the contest, when I was done I looked at what I had built, I was like, 'This is crap,'" Dauphin said. "And then when I got first place, I was just so surprised and happy."
But this isn't just a story about a young woman who happens to be a great carpenter. It is the story of someone who decided to overcome some hurdles and to accept help and guidance to achieve some pretty special goals.
Growing up, Dauphin was a self-admitted tomboy, and with a mother who drove a semi for a living, this kind of pluckiness was encouraged.
"I would go out to the yard and help them haul pipe and stuff," Dauphin said. "I have always been doing rough labor. My grandmother always had be out doing stuff at her farm too."
Dauphin decided to get married straight out of high school. When the young couple had to move to find work, it placed her too far from High Plains Technology to attend school like she wanted to and so she gave up on the idea of completing the construction course she had begun right out of high school.
"So I just went on with my life," she said.
But life is hard and so she and her husband had to move often so they could find enough work to keep them afloat with their two young daughters, depending on them.
Finally, Dauphin said "enough's enough" and decided there was only one way to address her need for better employment.
"I was like, I have to do something. I was not making nearly enough money to handle all this stuff," she said. "I told my husband, I don't care what happens, I am going to school where I can get certified. That way when I go onto a construction site they will actually take me seriously instead of thinking I'm some short, little girl who they let fill out an application, but never call me back."
And so she entered full-time once again into the construction (cabinet making) course at High Plains.
Master cabinet maker and High Plains construction instructor Pake Carlson was her teacher.
"She was an all-day student and so they can finish the course in one year," Carlson said. "She has always been a great kid and really skilled. But she had some attendance obstacles to overcome."
When Dauphin talks about her attendance, she still becomes emotional. It's an emotion born of utter gratitude for what her instructor Carlson did for her when she stumbled, like young people sometimes do.
Dauphin experienced a common youthful attitude affliction regarding attendance.
"I had a dumb young person move where I decided I was an adult, I was in charge and I am not going to get grounded if I don't go to school," she said. "I just kind of farted it off."
For Carlson's part, he took the construction teacher hat off and put the life advisor hat on. Seeing nothing short of pure talent spinning around in the mind of his young student, Carlson was not going to let her off the hook.
"We made a contract between us all and decided to keep her here," he said.
According to Dauphin the contract was a strict no-tolerance deal that included zero wiggle room. She was to never again, not even once miss a class or be late or she was out of the program.
"I was really stressed about this because this was all I felt I had at the time," she said.
Getting up earlier than seemed humanly possible and making certain she was making it to school was her first rule of the day.
Things were going well. She was adhering perfectly to the strict contract. And that was when she had a car accident, in which someone t-boned her in her vehicle while heading to class.
"My car was totaled," she said. "I didn't have money to get a new car or get it fixed."
Yet, not one to be easily beaten, she still managed to make it to class that day and every day after, thanks to the help of several people, including her mother-in-law and numerous other "Fairy God Mothers."
If you ask her about the help she got from others to complete the task and stay within the bounds of the rigid contract, she still gets tears in her eyes.
"Mr. Carlson is the only teacher I have ever had that I have been able to talk about personal stuff," she said as she fought the emotion in her voice."He was a really good friend. Yeah, he helped me a lot."
One of the many things Carlson did was to set Dauphin up with local construction company owner and expert furniture maker Tim Cruse to perform on-the-job training.
Cruse is a Woodward woodcrafter who makes fine, hand hewn and crafted furniture with natural, locally harvested wood for Just Beyond the Door.
Cruse had previously worked with Carlson and had asked him to keep his eyes open for some good cabinet making talent.
Cruse saw the natural wood crafting talent in Dauphin right away.
"The first time I ever met her I said measure a board and cut it," Cruse said. "She measured it perfectly and most people can't run a tape measure. You can just tell the naturals within the first five minutes."
It was important that Cruse have a natural - someone who not only had passion but also was keen to pay attention to detail - because the materials Cruse works with cannot be wasted on mistakes.
"I harvest lumber and then I build stuff out of this lumber," he said. "She's built a little shelf the other day and let me just show you."
He held up a small shelf hand created by Dauphin and already on display in the Just Beyond The Door. The arrangement is working so well, Cruse said he decided to make it more permanent.
Recently, after Dauphin completed her schooling and won the contest, Cruse said he decided to just hire Dauphin outright.
So just as she had expected, getting that schooling and certification got her just what she has always wanted...and when she slid her foot into the glass slipper, it fit perfectly.
Story from Woodward News written by Rachel Van Horn