Lower Salford woman revives modeling career at 57

By Brian Bingaman, The Reporter

Don’t let anyone tell you that modeling is an industry strictly for people younger than you.  That’s according to Valerie Owens, 58, of Lower Salford, who strutted the runway in July at the International Modeling and Talent Association competition in New York. Although she was there as part of a 58-model team representing Philadelphia’s John Robert Powers Modeling and Acting School, Owens went home with individual accolades in the Commercial Division’s Runway (first runner-up) and Fashion Print (first and second runner-up) categories.  She did so with 3,000 other models looking on “I think it’s because of the Baby Boomers that a lot more (mature) models are being used in print,” Owens said.

Since IMTA 2015, she’s been summoned back to the Big Apple by BMG Models Global Management to discuss signing with them.  “She’s beautiful inside and out,” said Mindy Sills, the director at John Robert Powers. “She came down that runway and she got a rousing set of applause. We know she’s going to do well in industrial and pharmaceutical (advertising modeling).”  A cancer survivor and a former WFIL-AM “Boss Chick,” who claims to be related to all-time Olympic legend Jesse Owens, Valerie Owens followed through on a whim last year to see if anyone at JRP — the modeling/acting school she had attended 44 years ago — thought she could get work in television commercials or magazine advertising.

“I went down to the building where I went to school, and it was gone,” she said. Fortunately, a commercial she saw later on TV included JRP’s current address in Philly.  “The director, she called me the next day to make an appointment for me to come in. The CEO of John Robert Powers, Mr. Gary Ross, who (worked) there when I was there (as an aspiring model), wanted to see me. He could not get over how good I looked at age 57. “At first, I started losing weight to lower my cholesterol. However, then I kept (exercising and eating right) to be able to fit back into clothes I wanted to wear when I joined the John Robert Powers Modeling and Talent competing team for the 2015 International Modeling and Talent Competition,” Owens said.  “It was a thrill … to be back in that environment. I will cherish that time forever.”

Owens aspires to be an inspirational advocate for senior citizens — “old has value,” she likes to say. “I want seniors to know that their dreams still mean something,” she said.  More than just a pretty face, Owens also wrote a book in 2009 called “America Huh! I’m Going Home,” which retells a nightmarish sequence of events that almost cut her life short. A graduate student at Temple University at the time, Owens had traveled to Nigeria with a friend to do scholarly research. Her plans were drastically interrupted when she was kidnapped and nearly sold into slavery. “I saw two teenage boys stoned to death. The bodies were laid out on the ground and nobody touched them and no police came. It’s something to help other people to be aware of being outside the U.S., and how governments can change quickly. It reminds me of what it’s like to kiss the ground (when returning home),” she said.