I ended up modeling the geometry for the hair and added a quick shader to it for a placeholder. Later I'll texture the hair and zbrush the whole head. Most importantly though I fiddled...
Using the quick and dirty crazybump program, I made a couple maps to plug into the various locations in the shader. The outcome? A great start to a beautiful addiction. I have never added anything other than bump maps and textures to my models. Specular, Occlusion, Normal, and Color maps were added and so far it has given it a more life like appearance. I had fun doing it and learned much. I'll continue working on this, after I do some kismet in UDK :)
Happy Time :)....:

WIP:

Polygon Mesh w/tris: