Before Chappell Roan, Kayleigh Amstutz was a promising Missouri athlete

Grammy winner ran in Southwest Missouri, now travels the world

Chappell Roan performs at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park, Sunday October 6, 2024. / Sara Diggins/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Chappell Roan is everywhere these days. And for good reasons.

Turn on the radio and you won’t have to wait long to hear her voice. The “Pink Pony Club” singer has been on a meteoric rise since the release of her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess by Island Records on Sept. 22, 2023.

Despite the song being released by Atlantic Records on April 3, 2020, prior to Atlantic also releasing Roan from her contract, “Pink Pony Club” caught fire after Island released it and the album and quickly achieved international success – reaching No. 26 on the US Billboard Hot 100, No. 13 on US Pop Airplay (Billboard), No. 13 in UK Singles, No. 22 in Australia, No. 13 in Lebanon and No. 9 in Ireland. The song reached No. 48 on Billboard’s Global 200.

The song has reached double platinum in the United States (RIAA) with over 2 million certified unit sales. She performed it, along with “The Giver” on Season 50, Episode 5 of Saturday Night Live on Nov. 2, 2024.

The album, meanwhile, has gone on to chart the hits “Hot to Go!”, “Good Luck, Babe!”, “Casual”, “Red Wine Supernova”, “Femininomenon” and “My Kink Is Karma”.  

On Feb. 2, days shy of her 27th birthday on Feb. 19, Roan made headlines when she won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist and received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year for The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.

Now living in Los Angeles and known to masses across the world, Roan kicked off her music career back home in Willard, Missouri, when Kayleigh Amstutz began covering songs and uploading them to YouTube around 2013.

At that time, Amstutz, Roan’s birth name, was also working on a running career at Willard, where she mostly competed in the 5K in cross country and the 800-meter run in outdoor competition for the Tigers before focusing solely on her music career.

While she doesn’t gloss up her running career, Roan, then Amstutz, turned in some solid times. In an interview released on Dec. 16 by Los Angeles music journalist Nardwuar, Roan said, “Running was what I was going to go to college for, I think. I love running. But not anymore.”

Her first high school competition came at the Neosho Border War in Neosho, Missouri, on Sept. 1, 2012. She placed 12th in the 5K, running a time of 23:54.00.

She followed that with a 17th-place finish in the Lebanon Invitational in Lebanon, Missouri, before taking fifth in 5K at the Willard/Marshfield Dual on Sept. 13, 2012, with a time of 22:56.00.

Feb 2, 2025; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Chappell Roan at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. Mandatory Credit: Dan MacMedan-USA TODAY / Dan MacMedan-USA TODAY

She also competed in the 5K that season in the Nixa Invitational, Irish Invitational, Central Ozark Conference Championship and then the district, sectional and state championships. She set a personal record at sectionals on Oct. 27, 2012, running a time of 20:06.96.

Returning to The Border War in Neosho as a sophomore on Sept. 7, 2013, she placed sixth in the 5K with a time of 25:07.00 and followed that with a fourth-place finish in the 5K at the Willard Triangular on Sept. 20, 2013.

She also placed 10th at the Willard Invitational and competed in the Lebanon Invitational, Nixa Invitational, Irish Invitational, COC and district championships in the 5K that season.

In 2014 she competed outdoors in the 800 run at the Glendale Girls Night Out on April 10, 2014 and competed in the 5K at the SWCCCA Meet on Sept. 6, 2014 and the Willard Quad on Sept. 19, 2014. She set a personal record in the 800 as a sophomore with a time of 3:07.03.

She also ran the 4x800 relay during track season as a freshman, completing a time of 11:08.89 alongside teammates Darby Ferguson, Hannah Hendrix and Kyndal Sloan.

In 2014 she teamed with Chloe Andrews, Megan Hergesheimer and Elisabeth Brooks at Girls Night Out, taking 12th in 11:23.95, and with Elisabeth Brooks, Melissa Schwartz and Chloe Andrews at the COC Championship, taking sixth in 11:27.01.

While she’s no longer running along pathways through open fields in Southwest Missouri, Roan is still chasing dreams across the globe. Her next show is scheduled for June 7, 2025, at Primavera South in Barcelona, Spain, and continues with scheduled stops in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary and France.