NEW YORK — When Reagan Baker-Jaillet was a teenager, she moved from small-town Tennessee to small-town Utah. Now she’s rolling out the red carpet for the grand opening of her salon in what some may call the biggest city of them all — New York City.

Baker-Jaillet is the owner of House of Reagan in SoHo, a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan. Her salon is stationed in a 120-year-old loft space that she transformed into a “whimsical, funky and upscale” establishment where she specializes in cutting and styling. Her niche aesthetic is “bedroom hair,” which she is in the process of trademarking.

Prior to opening her salon, she styled hair and modeled at New York Fashion Week, worked on projects for Netflix, Comedy Central, and “Saturday Night Live.” She’s been featured in several magazines, including Rolling Stone, Cosmopolitan and Vogue. She was also cast on an HBO dating show in 2023. Her transformation over the years, she said, can be attributed to learning at a young age how to reinvent herself.

“I’m the fifth out of six children in my family, and the youngest daughter,” Baker-Jaillet told KSL. “We moved from East Tennessee to Cedar City when I was in the middle of eighth grade. Before moving to Utah, we were all homeschooled, so Cedar City was really my introduction to being around kids my age and socializing daily. It was jarringly intimidating at first, but I learned to embrace the challenge of being a fish out of water.

“Most of the kids didn’t even know I hadn’t attended traditional school up until that point, or how deathly shy and socially inexperienced I was,” she continued. “By high school, I had mostly adapted and got involved in sports, after-school clubs, cheerleading, and was even voted into prom/homecoming court. I learned then how much I love the challenge of reinvention.”

The draw to glamour also came at a young age, as she watched her mom and older sisters put on makeup. She said that when she moved to Cedar City, she noticed that many of the girls in her class were “fearless” in the way they presented themselves, and she felt inspired.

“Growing up, I always loved watching my mom and sisters get ready and then going through their products when they weren’t home,” she said. “I practiced using their hot rollers and potions on myself and immediately noticed how elevated and great it made me feel. When I got to Utah, the girls were over-the-top and fearless with the way they did their hair, nails and makeup. I loved it.”

After high school, Baker-Jaillet attended Evan’s Hairstyling College in Cedar City and discovered that she not only loved cosmetology but also the diverse people she met on the job. This caused her to want to see more people and more of the world. To do that, she took a job as a nanny in New York and used that as a springboard to explore her new world.

“Cosmetology offered everything I loved — access to interesting conversations with a wide variety of people all day, and lots and lots of glamour,” she said. “I have to say, it was a fabulous choice.

“When I moved to the city in 2005, I was in awe of the surprises and thrills I came across at every corner,” she added. “Whether it was seeing an elderly person covered head to toe in tattoos, walking down the street, or wandering into some random store and finding an eccentric shop owner selling completely unrelated items, there was so much edge and backstory wherever you went.”

As she immersed herself in her new environment, with a set of hair-styling skills she had no way to capitalize on, she drew on another love that came naturally — writing. In the new age of blogging, she launched Hairdresser on Fire, which she said was a “huge part” of her career journey.

“I was a junior stylist with no clients yet, and as an early beauty blogger, I was able to combine my love of writing with what I was building day-to-day in the salon,” she said. “It catapulted my credibility as a beauty expert and helped me grow my clientele significantly. There are so many talented artists out there; writing about beauty set me apart.”

Staying true to who she is at the moment has allowed Baker-Jaillet the chance to create new versions of herself and the spaces to match. House of Reagan, she said, is very representative of who she is today.

“Out of all my creative endeavors, building this space has been the most challenging, but the most rewarding of all,” she said. “I’ve dreamt it up, creative-directed, and paid for almost all of it entirely by myself.

“This project has conditioned my mind to think beyond one-hour haircut increments and toward the bigger picture. I’m not always sure of what the end goal is, but I’m brainstorming and dreaming about what’s next all the time, and having a physical space allows me to jump on and execute those ideas right away.”

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As a big-city girl with small-town roots, she is grateful for a family that has allowed for autonomy — with a little room for sibling teasing, of course.

“Being on the younger end of six children gave me a lot of independence and confidence to figure things out on my own,” she said. “I’m naturally adventurous and a big risk taker, which I think has been funny for my family to understand at times. When I shared the news that I was cast in a show on HBO, my eldest sibling pleaded that I pretend to be an only child. That big family style of teasing will put hair on your chest and prepare you for the real world like nothing else.”

OGDEN, Utah (KSL) — The man convicted in the 2024 accident in the Ogden Canyon that killed two people after a bulldozer slid from the bed of his truck onto the victims’ vehicle has been handed the most severe sentence possible in the case.

Moreover, in sentencing Michael John Love on Friday, Judge Craig Hall ordered the incarceration terms on the five counts to run consecutively, making for a potential prison term of four to 23 years.

Utah sentencing parameters would point to probation in the case with jail time of zero to 270 days, but he is not required to follow them “and just cannot go along with those guidelines,” Hall said. “Simply put, probation is not an appropriate sentence in this case. Rather, I believe that the sentence should be the maximum sentence allowed by law as most appropriate.”

Preceding sentencing, family members fondly remembered the two fatality victims, Richard Hendrickson, 57, and his daughter Sally Hendrickson, 16. Love, for his part, apologized for the tragic turn of events. The elder Hendrickson had served as chief executive officer of Clearfield-based Lifetime Products.

A jury last March found Love guilty of two counts of negligent homicide, a class A misdemeanor, in the deaths of the Hendricksons in the July 6, 2024, incident. That’s less than the convictions for manslaughter, a second-degree felony, sought by prosecutors. The jurors also found him guilty of aggravated assault, a second-degree felony, stemming from the injuries suffered by Mollie Hendrickson in the accident and two counts of obstruction of justice, one of them a third-degree felony, the other a class A misdemeanor.

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As for actual incarceration time, Hall sentenced Love to 364 days of jail on each of the negligent homicide counts, one to 15 years imprisonment on the aggravated assault count, zero to five years imprisonment on the felony obstruction count, and 364 days of jail on the misdemeanor obstruction count. Love received credit for time served, nearly 600 days.

Love was hauling a 31,000-pound bulldozer when the piece of machinery, improperly secured, slid off his tow truck as he negotiated a curve along Ogden Canyon Road, a narrowing, winding roadway east of Ogden, and fell onto the oncoming vehicle driven by Richard Hendrickson. The force of the bulldozer sheared off the top of the Hendrickson vehicle, causing the two deaths and injuring Mollie Hendrickson, another of Richard Hendrickson’s daughters.

RELATED | Utah company mourns loss of CEO, his daughter in fatal Ogden crash

Hall scolded Love, an experienced tow-truck operator, for not properly securing the bulldozer. “There were simply no excuses for an individual, a licensed tow truck driver, to carry this bulldozer that was over 30,000 pounds on a metal track flatbed,” he said.

He also noted Love’s “extensive criminal history,” which includes prior convictions for theft, assault, impaired driving, burglary, driving on a suspended license, failure to secure a load and more. “You have been granted the privilege of probation and early interventions like drug court in the past, yet you have continued to engage in criminal, self-defeating behavior. Past leniency has clearly failed to deter this behavior, making the maximum sentence necessary today,” he said.

Furthermore, the judge said he was “troubled” by Love’s actions after the accident to cover up and obstruct the subsequent investigation, which led to the obstruction of justice convictions. He placed chains on the bed of his truck in the immediate aftermath of the crash as if to make it appear the bulldozer had been secured at several points, prompting the felony obstruction count. He misled law enforcement officials about how the bulldozer had been secured, leading to the misdemeanor obstruction count.

‘Bigger than life’

Richard Hendrickson had served as CEO of Clearfield-based Lifetime Products since 2013. He, his wife and three of the couple’s four children had spent the morning of July 6, 2024, boating at Pineview Reservoir and were on their way home when the tragedy occurred.

The man’s son, Sam Hendrickson, wife Julie Hendrickson and daughter Lyssa Hendrickson all addressed the court, expressing their grief over the deaths of Richard Hendrickson and Sally Hendrickson and pressing for prison time for Love. Mollie Hendrickson, severely injured, provided a pre-recorded statement.

“Being the only boy in the family means that I didn’t just lose a father that day, but a brother as well. The kindest and nicest man I’ve ever known was my father, and for that I’ll always be grateful,” Sam Hendrickson said. “My 16-year-old sister was just as amazing. Sally had a light about her that was contagious. She could light up a room simply by walking into it.”

He also remembered the ride with sister Mollie to the hospital after the accident, having to inform her of the two deaths. “Watching her determination to continue to recover and get better (despite) intense pain and countless surgeries has been incredible,” he said.

Julie Hendrickson said her late husband and daughter “are bigger than life” and that she continues to struggle with the loss.

Her husband “was my best friend and confidant,” she said. “I miss him every day…We had so many plans to do so much together.”

Love, shackled and wearing Weber County Jail garb, offered an apology and said the incident wasn’t intentional.

“If I could take it back, I would. I think about it every single day. I dream about it every single night. It’s something that I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life. I screwed up. I admit it,” he said.

Love’s attorney, Greg Skordas, defended his client, saying he’s remorseful and would be in tears whenever he visited him in jail. “He’s not the monster that everyone makes him out to be, and he’s not the remorseless human being that everyone wants him to be,” Skordas said.