I would tell her I was going to be a guitar player one day. I loved pretending to play the guitar (laughs). I used to dance and embarrass my aunt whenever she played blues music in the car. I grew up listening to Otis Redding, Johnnie Taylor, BB King, Little Milton and Three 6 Mafia. Holly: How has Memphis music inspired your artistic career?Īshley: Memphis inspired my artistic career at a very young age. "Memphis has truly taught me what hustle, grit, and grind is." He saw how passionate I was and he connected me DJ KJ ( and DJ Crystal Mercedes therunwaydj) here in Memphis and from there they gave me great tips and got me my 1st gig! After my first gig I started getting more opportunities, building my brand, and perfecting my craft.
I purchased a DJ board and started practicing and getting feedback from friends. He talked to me about the importance of having multiple streams of income and from there we started having long conversations about how I could start as a DJ.
In 2017 my boyfriend who is a Business and Marketing Consultant asked me if I wasn’t an ATCer what would I be doing and I told him DJing. I’ve been here six years.Īshley: I’ve always wanted to be a DJ because I love music and dancing. Holly: Where are you from? How long have you lived in Memphis/how did you get here?Īshley: I was born and raised in Virginia. I bring energy and life to people through music. Whiskey gives you life if you drink responsibly and that’s what I do as a DJ. I’m an Alpha female, who believes in empowering women to have confidence and faith. Alpha Whiskey also describes me as a person.
We use the phonetic alphabet to communicate with one another and my initials are Alpha Whiskey. Holly: I know you’ve answered this question many times, but: where does your name come from?Īshley: My name is Ashley Wimbush and I am an Air Traffic Controller. The boat rolled on to its side and we were up in the windward hull until the boat was righted.A post shared by Stax Museum on at 9:27am PDT Why "Alpha Whiskey"? We got to mark 1 in second and bore away, hitting 47 knots of boat speed and proceeded to pitch pole the boat which brought the speed to 2 knots of boat speed in less than a second! It was like hitting a brick wall. They decided to send us out for day 2 racing in 25+ knots and huge waves. Racing was cancelled on the first day due to too much wind. I was at the 2019 SailGP Cowes event, as flight controller on SailGP USA. That was the first world championship of my career and since then I have collected another four. I would say this was in 2013 when my team and I won the Match Racing World Championship. It was a real eye opener as to how fast things can change no matter how many times you have done it.Ģ-time Match Racing World Champion (2020, 2013), 2014 Etchells World Champion, 2-time M32 World Champion (2019, 2021), 5-time Congressional Cup winner. Without hesitation we tacked over to render assistance. The same break wall that took the life of Miami Marlins player Jose Fernandez earlier in the year. This made for very dicey conditions in the channel as waves were breaking.Īs we sailed out, we watched another team abeam of us lose a crew member overboard close to the break wall. It was blowing 25 out of the east with a ripping ebbing tide. One day in particular sticks out in my head. The hairiest moment I can think of on the Melges 24 was sailing out to the 2016 Worlds race course through the Government Cut. We have good regattas and not as good regattas, but the adrenaline rush when planing downwind keeps the motivation to keep racing! The Melges 24 fleet is competitive with some of sailing’s best sailors. The time we put in the boat made the difference in boat speed and handling and started paying off in our results.
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We put together a team and a full schedule of clinics and regattas. After that regatta, we made the commitment to put the time and effort into learning the new boat.
I have always been a competitive person and our first regatta in the 24 we finished pretty deep in the fleet. After being out of competitive sailing for almost two decades while in school, it was exciting to get back into the sport. I have raced a number of different boats in many different classes over the years, but the purchase of the Melges 24 my brother and I made in 2015 takes the cake.
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President US Melges 24 Class Association, 3-time Corinthian winner M24 Bacardi invitational Winter Series (2020-2021, 2019-2020, 2018-2019), 2-time Corinthian winner Charleston Race Week (2019, 2016). Luissa Smith, PR Director for the 2022 Bacardi Cup invitational Regatta, quizzed well-known sailing personalities about unshakeable moments that propelled them forward and incidents that still keep them up at night: