Lea Waide with Alley Taproom and Professional Athlete and Speaker Rhonda Rajsich
Alley Taproom is a local beer and wine bar, featuring an entirely local menu including fresh pressed juices, mocktails and sangrias made with home grown herbs.
Lea Waide is a true southern girl, raised in her formative years between Mississippi and Tennessee. She spent her entire life enthralled in the entertainment world, growing up as a competitive dancer and landing her first professional dance gig at age 16.
After three years at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Lea left for Las Vegas to pursue her career more seriously, where she worked as a dancer, acrobat and aerial artist. She finished her degree in business and marketing at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, as she continued dancing in the show Imagine at the Luxor. During that time, she created the sold-out “Red Affair,” attended by hundreds of Las Vegas entertainers.
After many years in entertainment, Lea began planning special events and transitioned into the hospitality industry, where she has worked for the last 18 years. She currently works as the lead bartender and supervisor for what Forbes Magazine recently called, “the best VIP club in Los Angeles.” Lea has managed everything from small private gatherings to large scale celebrity driven events, such as the Video Music Awards (VMA’s).
Lea’s sister, Sara, is a long-time resident and realtor of the Phoenix area. They had been planning to retire their parents to Arizona, when the time was right. Once a pandemic shut the world down, Lea took that opportunity to hone her idea for a business, write a plan and complete a timeline for moving herself and her parents to Arizona.
Lea moved to Phoenix in 2020 and has made the connections and partnered with necessary people to get her concept off the ground. In March 2022, she worked on the opening team for Carcara at Sheraton Phoenix downtown.
Her partner is Phoenix native and professional racquetball player Rhonda Rajsich. They live downtown full time with their new maltipoo puppy.
Connect with Lea on LinkedIn and Instagram and follow Alley Taproom on Facebook.
Rhonda Rajsich has been speaking throughout her athletic career. After a violent attack outside her home in Hermosa Beach, CA in 2008, she gained a new perspective and new life lessons to share with as many people she can reach in hopes of helping them.
Rhonda has recently turned more of her focus to cultivating her speaking career and writing her first book.
Rhonda is the most decorated professional racquetball player in U.S. history. She started playing racquetball at the age of two, as her father took her to the gym while he played. She grew up playing a bit of everything, but focused on racquetball and basketball throughout her youth and young-adulthood.
Rajsich was also a decorated basketball player, earning top honors and achievements in high school, which earned her a full-ride scholarship to a Division I school in east Texas, Stephen F. Austin, to play basketball for the Ladyjacks. Rhonda intended to play professional basketball in the WNBA, and had the opportunities to do so, but when she qualified for a spot on the US TEAM for racquetball, she refocused her efforts.
She chose to give racquetball her full attention and try out the Pro Tour. Just three months into her first pro season, Rhonda made the finals of her first US Open, taking out the #1 player in the world. At the end of that rookie season, Rajsich was ranked #3 in the world, and has not looked back. She has sustained a Top-5 position in the world rankings for her entire professional career, and achieved #1 in the world for 4 consecutive seasons.
Rhonda’s passion and love of sport is without question, as is her enjoyment in sharing the experiences and camaraderie of competition and travel. She does countless exhibitions, clinics, appearances, autograph signings, and motivational speeches throughout the year, and goes above and beyond to help create an experience to remember, to inspire, and to enjoy. Always entertaining, Rhonda has a way of truly engaging and energizing a crowd.
Her dynamic yet humble personality and jaw-dropping abilities have made Rhonda Rajsich a remarkable model of all that is right in sport.
Connect with Rhonda on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
