CHEYENNE — Real cowboys make real dirty laundry. Courtney Shillenn would know. Her business, Drop N Dash, has provided a drop-off laundry service at Cheyenne Frontier Days for the last two years.
“We’ve done about 1,900 pounds of laundry in five days,” she told Cowboy State Daily, standing in front of a car stuffed with finished laundry. “We usually do about 4,000 pounds in a month.”
In other words, in less than a week, she’s already hauled away half a month’s worth of laundry from Frontier Park. That clothing is next-level dirty — soiled with dust, mud and, yes, even some blood.
“Like I could tell when we were doing the Xtreme Bulls, because we got all the red shirts that the bull riders like to use,” she said. “And then you get a lot of blood on all of them, because they’re all getting beat.”
Team ropers, on the other hand, tend to have a more refined look. Barrel racers have lots of compression shirts and padding.
Shillenn estimates she makes at least five trips a day to pick up laundry from the event, much of it for same- or next-day service.
All of that adds up to a side of Cheyenne Frontier Days most people never see or think about.
In public, the PRCA requires cowboys to step into the arena in crisp, starched jeans and clean shirts that project professionalism.
Behind the scenes, it takes someone like Shillenn, making all the dirty laundry look new again — part of an underground economy that helps Cheyenne Frontier Days be all it can be.
Keeping It Professional
Life on the rodeo trail doesn’t leave much time for logistics, like hunting down a laundry service, Tennessee bull rider Hudson Bolton told Cowboy State Daily.
“Somebody has to get our stuff pretty starched up and not all wrinkled up,” he said with a chuckle. “You don’t want to be walking around not looking professional. I mean it is PRCA — It’s the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Professional is part of the name.”
That professional look needs to survive some unprofessional conditions, too.
“We get dirty and all wrinkled up, and cow crap and poop all over us,” he said. “So they take care of us and they clean it all up and make it look professional,” he said.
Hudson has a couple sets of jeans when he’s on the road. He keeps one pair for walking around and another that’s just for the arena.
The Secret Armor: Starch
If you notice that razor-sharp seam running down the middle of a pair of cowboy jeans that look as if they might stand up on their own, that’s all intentional.
The starch isn’t just for show. It serves as a kind of invisible armor.
“The heavier the starch, the more the crease stays,” Drop N Dash employee Jessica Snider told Cowboy State Daily. “And the more the dirt will brush off.”
The starch makes a pair of jeans more water resistant, and keeps the mud from soaking into the fibers. That way, it can be brushed clean with a simple horse brush, and still look professional.
Starch also toughens a pair of jeans, too, adding a little more protection.
The starch trick also works well for welders, Shillenn said.
“If you starch the jeans, it makes them less likely to spark,” she said. “So they’re less likely to catch fire.”
Drop N Dash, like a lot of laundries, has its own proprietary formula for starching cowboy jeans, helping to ensure one pair of jeans can survive multiple performances.
Five Trips, Sometimes With Hives
Shillenn’s day during Cheyenne Frontier Days is its own kind of rodeo loop.
She’ll drive into Frontier Park to pick up bags of laundry and haul them back to her business to wash, starch, fold, and then return the finished loads to waiting contestants and volunteers.
On a typical day, that means five trips into and out of the park, each with a carload of jeans, shirts, and riding gear covered in mud and muck.
Shillenn sends each of the cowboys a text when their laundry is ready to pick up.
“It’s a lot of volume to try and manage,” she said. “Especially when you’re not used to managing that kind of volume.”
Shillenn is allergic to hay, too, so she has to be careful when wrangling all this laundry to avoid breaking out in hives.
Hidden CFD Economy
Shillenn’s laundry numbers are just one small measure of the massive economic ripple effects Cheyenne Frontier Days has for area businesses. For her, it’s nearly half a month’s worth of her normal work packed into a single week.
Fans will remember eight-second rides, rodeo wrecks, and concerts without even thinking about how all the cowboys are looking so starched-up and professional — despite multiple rides in the arena.
Chances are, that’s thanks to someone like Shillenn, wrestling the worst of Cheyenne Frontier Days dirt out of a literal ton of laundry one washer load at a time.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
