JACKSON, Miss. - Since she graduated from high school at 18, Nina Lyons of Pontotoc has wanted to earn a living as an African-style hair braider.

Now, after two decades of working in a north Mississippi furniture factory, the 38-year-old will get to realize her dream without having to take cosmetology classes she considers irrelevant.

"It means everything to me. I've been waiting for this for 20 years," a smiling Lyons said Tuesday at the Mississippi Capitol.

She had just attended a ceremony at which Gov. Haley Barbour signed a bill that removes cosmetology education requirements that many hair braiders said were burdensome.

For years, Mississippi has said a braider must hold either a cosmetology license, which requires 1,500 hours of education in everything from salon management to hair cutting and styling; or a wig specialist license, with 300 hours in fitting, styling and caring for wigs.

Starting July 1, the education requirements will be dropped and each professional braider will have to take a self-guided test and pay the state an annual $25 registration fee. Each braider also will receive a brochure about sanitation.

The Washington-based Institute of Justice filed a federal lawsuit last year challenging the constitutionality of Mississippi's braiding regulations, and the lawsuit is now expected to be dropped. The institute and the 5,000-member National Federation of Independent Businesses helped braiders push for the change in state law this year.

Melony Armstrong of Tupelo, one of the plaintiffs in the federal suit, has owned a hair braiding salon called Naturally Speaking since 2000 and has done all the work herself. She says she's hiring five new employees.

One of the women going to work for Armstrong, Margaret Burden of Tupelo, was also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Burden said called the new law "a victory not just for hair braiders but for everyone in Mississippi who thinks the (political) system doesn't work."

"That is more than economic empowerment," Burden said. "That's empowerment, period."

Arizona, California, Kansas and Maryland already exempt hair braiders from cosmetology licensing and Michigan has a voluntary licensing system, the Institute of Justice says. The group says said Washington state recently interpreted its laws to say braiders aren't covered by cosmetology regulations.

Other states also have considered deregulating hair braiding. A bill was filed in Tennessee this year.

In South Carolina, Gov. Mark Sanford in December vetoed a bill that would've required hair braiders to have 60 hours of training. They now need 1,500 hours of cosmetology education.

Sanford said either requirement is "absurd" and the attempt to mandate 60 hours of training was "designed to protect the financial interest of folks in the cosmetology industry, not the safety of people getting their hair braided."

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The bill is House Bill 454.