Boggs is the sixth of eight children and the third to graduate from law school. In the seventh grade she was junior high president at her school in West Germany. Most of her childhood was spent in Germany and Italy. In high school, she was president of her sophomore, junior and senior classes. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1985 with a degree in business. She worked as director of marketing and admissions at the now-defunct Merritt Davis Business College in Eugene, Oregon. In 1989, she was crowned Miss Oregon and began a two-year journalism career.