Miss Rodeo America knows the strain of fighting cancer

For Ashley Andrews, every Tough Enough to Wear Pink Rodeo has a special meaning.

"It shows me people are willing to stand up and find a cure for cancer, not only breast cancer, but any kind of cancer," Andrews said.

Andrews, 22, the 2007 Miss Rodeo America, is a cancer survivor. She spent the weekend in Greeley for the 85th Greeley Stampede.

Andrews said was at the 2006 National Western Stock Show in Denver, just after she had been crowned Miss Rodeo North Dakota, when she realized something was wrong.

"I had lost three pant sizes, and I just felt tired and run down," Andrews said earlier this week.

Soon after arriving in Denver for the National Western, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and started chemotherapy treatments on Jan. 28 2006. She took treatments every other Tuesday for six months and was declared cancer-free Aug. 9.

The diagnosis, she said, was a shock.

"I'd never been sick in my life, and there was no history of cancer in my family. I just couldn't believe something like that could happen," she said. She is the youngest of six children to parents Bob and Rita Andrews of Bowman, N.D.

But once recovered, the North Dakota cowgirl then captured the coveted Miss Rodeo America title last December at the conclusion of a weeklong competition, which featured 28 contestants from across the country at the 52nd Annual Miss Rodeo America Pageant in Las Vegas. It had been 24 years since a North Dakota resident had won the national title.

She came to Greeley to participate in the Miss Rodeo Colorado pageant and for Friday evening's North Colorado Medical Center Tough Enough to Wear Pink Rodeo. That stop was one of several she'll make this year. The Stampede is one of 100 rodeos she'll attend while traveling some 100,000 miles.

That means a year off from her studies at the University of Mary, a private Catholic college in Bismarck, N.D., where she is majoring in public relations and political science.

She admitted her future "is the million dollar question," but said she'd like to get involved in public policy either in government or with an agricultural group.

She will also continue to work with cancer awareness and her community work with such organizations as the Lance Armstrong Foundation, Ronald McDonald House, American Cancer Society and the North Dakota Cancer Coalition.