Dec 02, 2007 - 04:05:14 CST
Brittani and Bridget live in a box.They're beautiful blondes.
It's dark in that box.
Quiet, too.
Life used to be a whirlwind, flying from arena to arena across the country, soaking in the house lights and all that adoration from gushing little girls. Not anymore.
Brittani and Bridget's box has letters on it. R-I-P.
Frankly, the blondes aren't long for this world.
Ashley Andrews will see to that. But first, there's some business to take care of in Vegas.
Andrews, a cowgirl from Bowman, flew out to Las Vegas on Thursday. She left Brittani and Bridget in the box in her closet. Last year, on the same flight out to the Miss Rodeo America pageant, the blondes were very much a part of her life.
But Andrews doesn't need her wigs anymore.
The 22-year-old cancer survivor and reigning Miss Rodeo America will relinquish her title a week from today. When she passes the tiara, it will be from atop her own lovely locks.
The lucky lady who takes Andrews' place will have big boots to fill.
"She's an exceptional individual," Raeana Wadhams, executive director of the annual pageant, said. "Ashley has had a remarkable year. It's been my pleasure to know her."
Andrews was voted Miss Rodeo America at the 52nd annual pageant last winter, which is held each year during the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. Andrews' exceptional horsemanship and personality singled her out from 27 other contestants. But it's her individual growth and work with sick children that have made her reign memorable, Wadhams said.
"The transformation has been unbelievable," Wadhams said. "It's incredible how she's matured as a person in just one year."
Actually, it's been almost two years.
Andrews started feeling sick at the National Western Stock Show in Denver in January 2006, back when she was Miss Rodeo North Dakota. She wrote it off to a common malady dubbed Stock Show Crud. She couldn't shake the symptoms, though, and eventually went to the doctor.
Probably astronomers are the only ones who can tell you when cancer is in the stars. It looks like a crab, they say.
But the real deal - the real Big C - sneaks up from behind. You never see it coming. And then it smacks you in the face.
Andrews was diagnosed with stage 2 Hodgkin's disease. Just a week before, back in Denver, Andrews had visited a hospital and had her picture taken with a boy who was receiving chemotherapy treatments. She had no idea she'd be next.
It rocked her and her close-knit family.
But she got back on her horse.
At a rodeo in February, just after her second chemo treatment, Andrews rode out to loud applause in the Bismarck Civic Center. Almost no one knew about her disease. Under the gold shirt she wore there was a hole in the left side of her chest. It contained a port, through which the chemo drugs were pumped into her body every other Tuesday.
She smiled and waved.
And she meant it.
"With Ashley, what you see is what you get," her sister, Rhonda Breuer, said.
During her Miss Rodeo North Dakota days, Andrews lived with her sister in Mandan. She had lost two pants sizes and was almost constantly sick from the chemo, but never complained. Back then, she said God doesn't give someone something they can't handle. She could handle it. And she could beat it.
She did.
By August, Andrews was declared cancer-free.
Three months later, she flew to Las Vegas with Brittani and Bridget and a bunch of family.
She won again.
It might not have been as important a victory, but Andrews was proud to become just the second Miss Rodeo America from North Dakota. Brenda Lee (Bonogofsky) Pickett, from Carson, won in 1983 - before Andrews was even born.
In the year since her coronation, Andrews has been to more than 100 rodeos and countless other public events. She has been the face of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, as well as a spokeswoman for several rodeo-related sponsors. She's had some interesting moments along the way - from having to shove away a male admirer in Massachusetts who became a little too amorous to spending a week in California with some hippies whose family used to own the famous racehorse Seabiscuit.
But her most cherished moments have been in hospitals and other events where people bring up the six-letter word that changes so many lives. Andrews doesn't mind being known as the rodeo queen who had cancer. She uses it to speak out about the disease.
"From the time of my diagnosis, Ialways knew that cancer would be something I would talk about," Andrews said last week. "People ask about it a lot, and Idon't think it's something I'll ever get sick of talking about. Sometimes I think people are bored with 'my story,' but the people who ask are people who need to hear it, need to hear that they can do it too. It's not about me. I'll always take that with me."
Soon, some other paper in some other town will be writing about the new Miss Rodeo America. There will be a line in the story about Andrews, and it will call her "former" or "out-going" or, if the writer likes his thesaurus too much, "quondam." The story will certainly miss the point of who Andrews is, and what someone in her position can do. Miss Rodeo America can, in fact, make the world a little better place.
Sometimes it's the tiara that sparkles, and sometimes it's the person underneath. The difference is, that tiara is one-size-fits-all. Andrews is unique.
In a week, she won't be Miss Rodeo America anymore. And in less than a year, she'll have a completely different title: Mrs. Alderson. Andrews is newly engaged to Eric Alderson, also of Bowman. She's looking forward to planning a wedding, returning to the University of Mary and getting back to her regular life.
In the last year, Andrews has spent less than a week a month in North Dakota. She can't wait to be back home.
"As much as I traveled this year, as many good people as I met, I'm still a North Dakotan," she said. "I always will be."
In her second go-round, the cowgirl plans to take the bull by the horns.
Brittani and Bridget might not be long for this world, but Ashley Andrews is.
(Reach reporter Tony Spilde at 250-8260 or tony.spilde@;bismarcktribune.com.)
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