Scott Swanson
Last fall Sarah Winslow shot her first buck with coaching from country music superstar Blake Shelton.
Shelton’s wife, Miranda Lambert, texts her and teases her a bit about bumping into players from the Green Bay Packers, Winslow’s favorite team.
Hanging out with the country music megastars has become a daily routine for Winslow, who has an unusual job, with an unusual boss – Lambert – who, coincidentally, headlines this year’s Oregon Jamboree Opening Night on Friday, Aug. 1.
Life has taken Winslow quite a ways from Sweet Home, where she graduated from high school in 2006. The daughter of current Sweet Home High School Principal Keith and Brenda Winslow, she earned a college degree in exercise science, but she ended up doing nothing involving athletics. Instead, she worked at the Oregon Jamboree for four years, for the Country Music Association and then, for the past year, she’s become an aide to Lambert.
“I worked at (the Country Music Awards) in Nashville for their live event,” Winslow said, who was still a Jamboree employee at the time. Later, she moved to Nashville.
“One of the guys I worked with there became her tour manager,” Winslow said. He asked Winslow if she would be interested in working for Lambert. Winslow agreed and went to work in April 2013 as the assistant to the tour production manager, a production assistant.
Lambert doesn’t tour with many women, Winslow said, but the two had a lot in common. Eventually, Lambert asked Winslow to become her personal assistant.
It’s a working friendship, Winslow said. Shelton, who is married to Lambert, took her hunting as a housewarming gift when she moved to Oklahoma in November to take the job.
“I actually got my first buck with him this fall,” Winslow said. Winslow grew up hunting but had never bagged a buck here.
She is living in southeastern Oklahoma, an area that, she says, is a lot like eastern Oregon.
“I love it,” Winslow said, noting that the area does have a few drawbacks. “It’s like an extension of eastern Texas. I’m not a fan of tornadoes, snakes and tarantulas.”
Her job varies, she said. “My job is different every single day.”
Lambert owns the Pink Pistol, a uper-scale boutique in Tishomingo, Okla., and she is getting ready to open a bed and breakfast. Winslow has helped with those as well as other projects Lambert needs done.
“She is so independent,” Winslow said, and she takes care of things herself.
Lambert hasn’t had a personal assistant in the past, and Winslow hasn’t been one, so they’re both getting used to it.
“She calls me her go-to girl, her right-hand girl,” Winslow said. In the meantime, Winslow is observing and learning. At an event in Utah in December, Robert Kennedy Jr. attended. His assistant had been with him for 25 years. She knew him and what he needed perfectly. That’s Winslow’s goal: shadowing Lambert behind the scenes and being available.
They’re getting it figured out, she said, and developing different roles at home and on the road.
“(Lambert) has got so much going on, it’s fun,” she said.
It was Lambert’s performances that helped change Winslow’s taste in music. She didn’t care much for country growing up.
“I actually hated country music until college,” Winslow said. “I told her this the other day.”
She listened to rock ’n’ roll, oldies and Christian music.
Two friends introduced Winslow to “Gunpowder and Lead,” from Lambert’s 2007 album, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.”
Now, country is her “go-to” music. Lambert and Little Big Town are probably her favorite artists, she said.
Winslow continues to love the other stuff, and while she doesn’t normally get star-struck, she may have gotten a little closer to it while attending the Grammy Awards and seeing Ringo Starr walk in.
“At rehearsals in LA, Sir Paul (McCartney) was there,” Winslow said. “It’s so weird, they’re (from England and) in the same building as you – more of a weird thing than being star-struck.”
Lambert has continued to influence her tastes in music, and taught her to respect the older, traditional country music.
In the country scene, she’s added George Strait to the list of artists she likes after Lambert opened for him, Winslow said. “He is called the King of Country Music for a reason.
“She just talks about them with high respect.”
The job is unusual, Winslow said.
“It fits with my personality. I think it’s a cool job because it’s her. There’s no other artist I’d do this job for. We have a lot in common. It’s not just work.”
The job affords her a lifestyle she loves, spending time in the outdoors, she said. She loves dogs and, although currently she doesn’t have her own, she watches Lambert’s and Shelton’s dogs.
However, when it’s time to work, it’s work time, Winslow said, and she couldn’t ask for a better boss.
“She’s just that kind of person. It’s hard, because I am not with friends or family, but I don’t have to give up who I am to do this job.”
Winslow is looking forward to coming home with her boss this week.
“I’m excited,” she said. “I think the Jamboree is an awesome festival. I personally believe this is one of the nicest festivals in the country. I’m excited to come back, and just to see her perform on that stage will be awesome.”