By Lauren Bishop
Enquirer staff writer

Ashley Horne of Wyoming and her mother, Patti, say they spent a long, long time in Levi's flagship store in San Francisco last year, trying to pick out the perfect pair of jeans and the perfect embroidered decoration to go on the back pocket.

It turned out to be a good investment.

Thanks to the jeans, the 18-year-old Wyoming High School graduate entered and won a contest sponsored by Levi's to find regular people to appear in ads that will appear in People, Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated magazines this September.

Horne entered the contest on a whim in May, clicking on a pop-up ad that appeared on her computer screen while she was filling out forms for the University of California, Berkeley, which she will attend this fall.

She had 50 words to describe why she liked her jeans, which she had had embroidered with a cowboy boot on the pocket.

She opted to write a poem. Here's an excerpt:

"The trip of my life - San Francisco
where I found myself
and have the jeans to prove it."

She got her mother to take a photo she was required to submit and dropped it in the mail the next day, the application deadline.

"I just thought since not a lot of people around Cincinnati wear Levi's and I do - I wear that pair a lot - that I should enter," she says.

"But I was never really thinking about the modeling part of it. I never really thought that I would win."

After she got the phone call in early June saying she won, ("I didn't really even know what I won, but I was really excited," she says) she and her mom flew to New York June 20 for the photo shoot and the other part of her prize - a $1,000 Levi's shopping spree.

They were joined there by the male winner of the contest, 21-year-old Jihaari Terry of Newark, Calif.

The best part of the shoot, says Horne, who admitted she was intimidated at first, was the regular touchups from the hair stylists and makeup artists. "I definitely would do it again," she says. "I didn't think I would like it and I had a great time. I loved it."

This summer, Horne is working as a lifeguard and will also go to Mexico with Friendship United Methodist Church's youth group to help build homes for families.

An honor student in high school who also was on Wyoming's golf, softball and swim teams, Horne leaves for college in August and plans to study pre-med or science.

Thanks to her shopping spree, she'll take a new wardrobe with her, including 11 new pairs of Levi's.

"That was one thing I was excited about, not the modeling, but that I didn't have to worry about buying stuff for school, " she says.

"And now I'm set."

---

E-mail lbishop@enquirer.com