When Alexis Deese graduated from Ooltewah High School a year ago, she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life.
There was college, of course, but she couldn’t make the finances work. In the weeks after she got her diploma, she sat up one night staring at her computer screen at what college programs were available.
“I started looking at programs and all the money that went into it. All the money I didn’t have,” she said.
But Deese had a neighbor, a soldier in the Army, who wanted to help shape her future and encouraged her to consider enlisting. Between the travel, the education she would receive and the direction she would have, it sounded like a golden opportunity, so she immediately signed up for the Navy.
“It was literally a one-night decision,” she said.