Ep. 55 - Where are they now? Featuring Miss Rodeo America 2007 Ashley Andrews-Alderson!
Recorded: March 2020
Released: November 30, 2020
Where are they now? Featuring Miss Rodeo America 2007 Ashley Andrews-Alderson.
You may know Ashley Alderson as the head of the Boutique Hub and voice of the Boutique Chat podcast BUT she first made strides as Miss Rodeo America in 2007!
Formerly Ashley Andrews, Ashley Alderson was the 2007 Miss Rodeo America and hails from the great state of North Dakota. She joined our podcast right after the National Finals Rodeo in 2019 to help us put together this little sneak peak for the time that would be the Miss Rodeo America Pageant.
Before Being a Rodeo Queen
Ashley grew up as the youngest of six children - five boys and one girl - quite by accident as her mom had her at the age of forty! A typical ranch kid, she competed in rodeo with the rest of her family where they all excelled in all of their own events. Deciding that she had to do something that no one else in her family knew anything about so that she could remove all their unwarranted advice. That event? Rodeo queening.
Before competing for Miss Rodeo America she was Miss Rodeo North Dakota with an unusual year. Her first trip with the title was the stock show in Denver and, during that time, she started to lose weight, was exhausted and would wake up in the middle of the night in sweats. At the age of 21 years old, she figured she was fine, but it was her first night home after stock show that she woke up to extreme pains in her chest.
The random urgent care clinic that she walked into became a blur for the next few days and then she heard the news, “You have cancer.”
Watching her family crumble around her as she was hit with a new rule over a new rule; no traveling, you’ll lose your hair, you may not have kids, and so many other rules to survive cancer. Inside, Ashley felt this switch flip inside of her that she had a will to live and that she had plans.
“I’m not going to lose my hair, I don’t have time for cancer, and I have all these plans to travel,” says Ashley. With a positive mindset on what she wanted to do, she figured out what she needed to do to get through the next few months which involved six months of chemo.
Battling Cancer as a Rodeo Queen
Her worst fears came true when she lost her hair but, staying positive, she brought home three wigs: Brittney, Brandy and Bridget. Ashley continued her battle with Hodgkin's-Lymphoma, which is cancer of the lymph nodes and the pain that she was battling was the tumors pushing out of her cavity but it had a high success rate for survival. With where her tumors were and where they were radiating at, they said that she needed to watch for breast cancer.
In August her doctor’s announced her to be in remission and she continued to plan for the Miss Rodeo America pageant.
Confidence in Beauty; Handling Self-Esteem
Weight loss, wearing a wig, and so many other factors, Ashley said that she had some very real moments to learn to not be confined by how she looked. Too often, women are defined by a good hair day or bad hair day, and how they look. One of those first moments was when she went wig-shopping with her sister for the first time and found herself bawling in the salon.
The thought of losing her identity was really crushing but, ironically, the day that she lost her hair she was living with her oldest sister at the time and her kids, and had gotten up to go to work as she was working and going on her travels. In the shower, running her fingers through her hair, all of the hair that she had left on her head that day came out in one big hairball in her hands.
“I thought that moment would be the hardest one, but it was one of those moments that we all have that I had to decide, for me, ‘am I going to react to this?’ am I going to be ‘woe is me pity party?’” says Ashley. “I got little Brittney out of her box and wore a wig to work.”
Announcing Her Cancer Publicly
Throughout the entire pageant, Ashley didn’t want the judges to know that she was wearing a wig or battling cancer throughout the Miss Rodeo America Pageant. Making Top 5, she was brought down onto the stage for the infamous Top 5 question. The question that year?
What’s the greatest challenge you faced in your year prior to competing for Miss Rodeo America and what’s the thing that you’ll remember the most?
It was in that moment that Ashley shared three lessons that she learned from this journey:
Everything in life happens for a reason.
God only gives us as much as you can handle.
Something good comes from every bad situation if you’re willing to work for it.
Then she told everyone that she was wearing a wig.
We all go through changes, but we all have to do the time to do the internal work to be ready for it. Before Miss Rodeo America, Ashley had notebooks full of questions that she would ask herself. Not just the typical rodeo questions or practice questions, it was more involved in knowing herself and her strengths. This made Ashley secure in who she was and where she was going in life and that helped her get through the process as it built her confidence in herself and not on her outer beauty.
Podcast Bonus
“Miss Rodeo North Dakota winning is the Rudy story, the under-dog story,” says Ashley, who jumps into the most humorous story of trying to teach her family how to “act cool” in Las Vegas as she parallels them to the Griswold family. Ringing cowbells, a brother vomiting with nerves, and the PRCA almost kicking them out of the official press conference due to their rowdiness.
To this day, it’s known as one of the most exciting and humorous press conferences in the history of Miss Rodeo America.
Boutique Hub
During the time of her crown, social media was pretty small, and Facebook was just getting started. Traveling as Miss Rodeo America, she would see the cutest stores and boutiques all over the country. She wanted to bring together boutiques from all over into one area to help rural shoppers find them and then to also help the boutiques market and grow.
Being from North Dakota, she felt like fashion was very much New York, Los Angeles or Texas, so she wanted to create something for women like her who could be involved. Now she believes that fashion is for everyone and it’s not just segregated into one place.
Today, they have a platform for a shopping mall (boutique.style) where you can discover stores by their style, by your style (you can even take a style quiz) and you can subscribe to their product feed which you can save to your online boards.
Once you build that part of the business, you realize the boutiques need business strategy so Boutique Hub is the business-to-business side of the platform globally. They do live events and conferences, education, and resource for everything their business might need.
“It’s so cool, and like you said, Fashion is for everyone,” says co-host Rachel. “You are able to express yourself.
Boutiques are the lifeblood of mainstreets everywhere.
They are in every single community and nobody can serve a customer like the Boutique Hub. Passionate about changing people’s lives, Ashley believes that anyone can start a business and that she can help that business change lives, change their lives, change the financial freedom of that family and the culture around those employees. Improving people not just financially but through their mindset and faith - that’s the progress she loves seeing every day. Fashion and boutiques are the vehicle but change is people is what she loves!
Boutique Products
Membership
Roughly $24.00/month to get started and gives Boutique owners the tools they need.Boutique Boss Planner
It’s for any retailer, not just fashion boutiques, and can be used a lot of ways.Retail Boot Camp
Opened twice a year for two semesters that is like college for boutique openers.The Western Summit
With a big western core, it’s the Boutique Summit niched for their western lifestyle followers. Has been held at WESA for the past few years and has 13 or so speakers and is a grassroots opportunity to bring the industry together.Western Runway
Jessie Jarvis, Tiffany Cooper, and Ashley all founded Western Runway, a western fashion magazine and community (All Things Western on Facebook).
Make sure to follow along with all things Boutique Hub and Ashley Alderson!
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