Originally born in OHIO and raised on a yuppie farmh in a small town outside of dayton ohio Her mother is a professional and has worked for the government for almost 30 years and her father is retired Traci was raised on staage at the age of 2 starting with ballet then tap then jazz she was a natural on stage throughout her childhood she was in pagaents and sport like softball volleyball and track in high school she competed in many events Miss Wright State of OHIO All American Drill Team After Traci graduated her love of dance and people took her to a business college where she studied basics in business management Then she learned ins and outs of banking and later took on another degree in Medical Techology She also did promotional work for bartended ran local bars and competed in bikini contests for extra funds In 1996 Traci started lifting weights with a friend and saw a photo of Marla Duncan winning a national competition Her beauty and physique impressed her enough that she wanted to try what she was doing Fitness Competitions At the time she was developing some problems medically and noticed herself gaining some weight Traci thought weight training would help but she found that because she is a natural she responded almost imediately to the weights which caused her to get pretty stocky and very strong quick She was still eating normally but when it comes to bikini contests you need to be lean and feminine well this is when the Army Soldiers took a noticed to her She was at Ft Hood TX and was left alone because a lot of times soldiers are away for months to years and she was pretty shy meeting others because she had always been very much independent So she decided to check out while in studies some competitions related to the Army This is where she found out about obstacles course contests so she knew she was strong and stocky so maybe this would be better for her So she entered her first WTF competition with little or know training and out of 100 girls made nationals in top 10 but something happened she started noticing her weight wasn t changing and she was developing back problems and fatigue She had always had problems with being healthy as a kid and seemed to get sick a lot Her Father was always on her about bundling up One day her discomfort and taken so much that she ended up in the emergency room this is when she found that her bowels had backed up into her system and she was lucky because if was really serious the only time she had ever dealt with hospitals is with her hearing she had lost her hearing at four along with being sick all the time and at 17 had to have implants put in which was a miracle cause it gave her 80 back but she is still considered hearing impaired now this is happening to her she had gained a weight up to 180 and looked very stocky the doctors didn t know what was wrong with her she spent three days being detoxed so to speak when they didn t know if she had lupus rheumatoid but later found traces of cancer in her colon but she didn t let it get her down So she reenrolled in school again for more college degrees towards nutrition in NC Up until 2002 she only competed for fun not as a money making career In 2002 she was honored with several titles in many organizations like Hawaiian Tropic Venus Ms Fitness and Sport Aerobics and WTF it wasn t til she had heard she was on ESPN2 every month for one year and honored on the front page of her local newspaper and found herself in several articles in OXYGEN This helped Traci realize that she had potential to earn some actual money in the fitness industry She kept competing and in April of 2002 moved to an organization which she had heard was tough and very different from others called NPC IFBB This is where Arnold S Slyvester Stalone and many more came out of you know the BOYS CLUB Once she arrived competing in her first NPC she had found a very different way they handled threi shows and treated the competitors Shoop coming from a strong female in charge background family life saw that this was going to be a challenge for her she had dreamed of maybe getting more exposure and getting the chance to really be friends with some of the hollywood celebrities During the time she was studying nutriiton she always had more than several ideas and projects in mind to bring to the future now she has alwsy felt competing natural was always her best route and found with no help and little support she was able to conquer her enemies and achieve her goals She was always wnadering why thes other girls who seemed to get covers and major sponsors did it where she found herself funding everything on her little 7 an hour because she as a military spouse never made as much in those cities because the husband was the provider she was tired of the little she wanted bigger she knew that s