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GREENSBORO - Last fall, right before his graduation from UNCG, Edgar Cabrera frequently saw his smiling face on an "Outstanding Senior" flier somewhere on campus.

So did everybody else.

"Dude,'' a classmate would say. "You're famous.''

"Yeah,'' Edgar would respond. "They just needed someone to put in the picture.''

Yeah. Maybe. But rewind to 1993.

Edgar came to New York City with $42 in his pocket - $7 of it in coins. He flew in from the Dominican Republic, his home, carrying one suitcase and wearing a pair of Converse sneakers he borrowed from a friend.

"Just be careful,'' his father, a photographer, told his oldest son.

His mother, a teacher, wanted him to go. She bought him the plane ticket because she wanted him in America. Everything seemed iffy in the Dominican Republic. Everything seemed bright beneath the Statue of Liberty.

Or was it?

He was 18, staying with his paternal uncle. On his first night here, his uncle told him to pull something from the refrigerator and heat it up. Edgar had no idea how to use a microwave.

"This is what they mean about America?'' Edgar asked himself.

He scraped by. He picked up dirty laundry, bagged groceries, worked in a bakery and stocked shelves in a supermarket. Although he stayed in New York City for nine years, he felt trapped, rudderless and alone.

Then came the call from his brother, Oscar. He was working in Raleigh.

"You work too much,'' his brother told him. "You should give yourself a break and come down here and check it out. It's very laid back here.''

Edgar did.

In 2002, he moved in with his brother in an apartment complex in north Raleigh and took a job as a server at a restaurant. And he discovered another searcher just like him.

Suzanne Buchanan, the complex's leasing agent, had just graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill, with a degree in journalism and a minor in art. She didn't want to return home to Avery County. But she had no idea what to do next.

She loved to draw, ever since sketching her first turkey at 18 months old. So, in 2003, she moved to Greensboro to get a master's degree in interior architecture. And Edgar, her boyfriend, didn't want to lose her.

"I'd follow you through the gates of Hell,'' he told her.

Edgar liked to draw, too. And when he picked up Suzanne at UNCG, something clicked. He began taking courses at GTCC, transferred to UNCG, and just like Suzanne, he enrolled in its interior architecture program.

He was known for his high, whiny giggle in the hallways. But he also was known for his outstanding work. In December, in a borrowed cap and gown, he graduated magna cum laude.

And today, he's in Italy.

He's there through the week's end going through training with Natuzzi, his new employer. He's one of the furniture company's visual presentation managers. He got the job, thanks to his new U.S. citizenship.

Since he took the oath a few weeks ago in Charlotte, he's apt to start singing "I'm Proud To Be An American'' anywhere. He doesn't sing in the baritone of Lee Greenwood. He sings in the high, whiny voice of one of his favorites: Herbert, the creepy old character from "Family Guy.''

And wherever he is, whenever he's singing, he's usually beside the artist from Avery County, the woman he calls "G.'' That's Suzanne. They got married in August on a cabin's back porch.

"Well, this is it!'' he wrote in a Jan. 17 post on his blog about his new job. "I am living it and loving it!''

He's 33. He's searching no more.

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com