The Chicago Tribune picked up on the story of Rock Girl Shannon making the cover of the May issue of Maxim and posted an interview with her today.  

“I got a text at 7 in the morning Wednesday from my friend who was at the airport, saying, ‘Congrats on getting the cover of Maxim,’ ” Ihrke said Friday by phone. “I was freaking out. I wasn’t expecting to get on the cover. It was surreal. I was like, ‘I have to go get that magazine.’ ”

Regarding her move from Marine to model, Shannon said, “I didn’t wear makeup for four years,” Ihrke said. “I looked like a guy. This is my time to be super girly.” Her mom, on the other hand, wasn’t as excited about her modeling career — at least not in the beginning.

“My family is a very Christian and conservative family originally from a small town in Minnesota,” Ihrke said. “When I started modeling, my mom said, ‘I don’t know about that.’ She wanted me to stay in the Marine Corps. They’re super-supportive now. My dad took pictures of himself holding a stack of the (Maxim) magazines.”

And how have her former peers in the Marines reacted to her Maxim fame?

“They still don’t believe it,” Ihrke said. “They’re like, ‘I can’t believe the (Marine) who used to yell at me to clean my room is on the cover of Maxim.’”

Read the full interview here.