Brooke's News & Events
Moving forward
Sun, Nov 9th, 2008 12:00:00 am
Brooke is starting to get shoots with Ford clients.....Alliance T.V. in south beach is looking at Brooke for upcoming film
Uhrichsville's Brooke Whitman signs deal with Ford Agency
Sat, Aug 16th, 2008 12:00:00 am
By Lee Morrison
The Times-Reporter
UHRICHSVILLE, OH — It may be awhile before Brooke Whitman gets muddy again.
The 11-year-old Uhrichsville girl has signed a contract with Ford Modeling Agency at Miami, Fla., one of the world’s largest.
Ford picks only one out of 20,000 applicants to join the agency.
“She’s a little, Uhrichsville, O., girl, who goes fishing and gets muddy from head to toe, then later she’ll dress up and model,” said her mother, Valerie Whitman.
Ford is going to try Brooke in all areas. She started modeling professionally at age 9 with Docherty at Cleveland and has done print modeling and a training video.
“She said, ‘Mom, I want to get bigger,’” said Valerie, who “did some modeling back in the day.”
“I didn’t know where to go, so I submitted her to the world’s largest agencies, Elite and Ford,” she said. “I expected a rejection, but got immediate positive response, which shocked me.”
Brooke “didn’t quite understand” the scope of it, so she did a school type report on Ford. “So, she realized what her chances were, which we thought were likely slim to none,” Valerie said.
Jim Celuch of Celuch Creative Imaging at New Philadelphia had confidence in Brooke, so he spent an hour photographing her so she would have a top-notch professional portfolio.
Brooke interviewed with Elite, and had an extensive interview with Karen Greer, the head of the children and teens division for Ford. Ford offered Brooke a contract.
The Whitman family, including father Brenton, will continue to reside at Uhrichsville, but also will keep an apartment in Florida at times. She will go Florida in November.
“They usually don’t take someone who lives in Ohio, but they’re taking Brooke,” Valerie said.
“Initially, they talked about only being in Miami, but now they’re going to send her to New York. She’ll fly everywhere.”
The Claymont Intermediate honor student enjoys gymnastics, swimming, and spending time with family and friends.