Former model looking forward to teaching career

 The Sidney native, now 38, is in the professional semester at Chadron State College, will student teach this spring in her hometown and expects to graduate with a degree in elementary education in May.

“I’ve wanted to be a teacher for a long time and finally here I am,” Julie said, her bright brown eyes flashing. “My goal is to be an awesome teacher. I wouldn’t go back to my former life for anything. It provided me with a lot of life experiences, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.”

When Julie graduated from St. Patrick’s High School in Sidney in 1984 after being a cheerleader, the homecoming queen, a track standout and an honor student, she attended Nebraska Western College in Scottsbluff for a year.

“I did all right, but I had some girlfriends who had moved to Dallas to attend a fashion merchandising school. They invited me to visit them. I decided to stay and I went looking for a job. People had told me when I was growing up I should be a model. So I went to the chamber of commerce office and got a listing of the modeling agencies. I was too intimidated to try the largest agency, so I went to the third largest. I was at the right place at the right time. They needed a brunette so I was hired.”

The firm was named Industry Dallas. One of its major clients was J.C. Penney, which used her picture often to help sell merchandise, including on a couple covers of sales catalogues. She also posed for a cheerleading catalog along with the future (now ex) wife of Cowboys’ quarterback Troy Aikman, and Pam Skaggs, whose picture still shows up frequently in magazines and catalogues nearly 20 years later. Julie also was an “extra” in the “Dallas” television series a few times.

“I was always a print model,” she explained. “At 5-7, I was too short to be a runway model at fashion shows. After I’d been in Dallas a few months, a Japanese agency was scouting for models and they asked me to go to Japan. I think they thought my dark hair and dark eyes would work well in their culture. So at 19, I went to Japan all by myself. It was something of a bittersweet experience.”

The agency that hired her also represented Cindy Crawford, although Julie never met the supermodel.

“They sent my pictures and my measurements to clients and I went to what are known as ‘cattle calls.’ That’s when up to 500 girls show up and they pick a few to photograph, wear their clothes or push their products. My biggest job was with Reebok. It came during one of the cattle calls. I was the only girl they selected to help advertise their complete line of merchandise. It was a three-day shoot. The best thing was, I got to keep all the items.”

Julie was never without a contract during her five years in Japan. Most of the contracts were in two-month segments. Many were sent packing after just one stint. She was marketed as “the All-American girl,” and was on billboards, posters and on the cover of at least five magazines, appeared in numerous ads in magazines and was in dozens of catalogues. She was even a Lucky Strike flag girl at auto races. She was so busy that after about three years, people frequently recognized her if she walked the streets of Tokyo.

It wasn’t just her striking beauty that landed her the jobs. She learned the Japanese language, taught herself the alphabet, flashed a big smile, was friendly and tried to adapt to the culture.

“I would bow when I was introduced and the photographers liked to work with me because I could communicate in their language. I know I got jobs because I had developed an outgoing personality while working at my parents’ Dairy Queen in Sidney, been in a lot of activities in high school and was raised in a home where we respected everyone. When it was close, a lot of jobs went to the model with the personality over those who were more beautiful.”

The money was good. She was paid $100 an hour and made more than $100,000 her final year in Japan, although the cost of living in Tokyo “was outrageous,” in her words. She said she paid $1,800 a month for an apartment so small she could touch the opposite walls at the same time. The agency also kept a big chunk of her paycheck.

Although she said she never had a weight problem and still weighs less than 110, she constantly worked out to keep her body toned. She credits the high school track training she received at St. Pat’s from Dick Scott, now the activities director at Sidney High, for helping her stay fit and thus employed.

“If you added a pound or two in the wrong places, you were out,” she said. “We were weighed and measured nearly every day. Being judged on your outer appearance day after day was damaging. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. I tell everyone to stress education and smarts, not looks. Being a model is such a worldly experience, although I never had to do anything immoral.”

The love bug bit Julie while she was in Japan. She fell in love with Shinri, who worked at the same agency as she did. He was the manager of the runway models. He is Japanese, but had been a high school exchange student in the United States. They were married in Japan, but moved to Sidney a few months later.

Although they were together 10 years and had two children, the marriage eventually failed. While she was invited to return to her old agency in Japan to work as a model and help recruit new ones in 1995, she turned down the offer, largely because of that country’s crowded conditions and her desire to raise her children in the U.S. She said the longer Shinri stayed in Sidney, the more miserable he became, probably because it is too rural.

Julie later married Sidney native Jason O’Connell, had a third child with him, but is single again.

For 10 years, Julie was a “stay-at-home” mom who sometimes modeled for Cabela’s catalogues. In 2001, she began attending Western Nebraska Community College in Sidney. After receiving her associate degree, she took distance learning courses offered by Chadron State in Sidney. Last spring, she was named the Sidney campus’ student of the year.

During the past year and a half, she has been a substitute teacher in the Sidney schools, She said she often got goose bumps when she entered the classroom because she was thrilled to be there.

After graduating in May, Julie will be ready to launch a new career, one that she said she expects to find much more fulfilling. “I want to be the best teacher possible,” she said. “Then I’ll know that I’ll be doing something much more worthwhile than what I was once doing.”