Sarah Renfro was an international fashion model for seven years but now she's a youth minister and helps young girls deal with body-image issues.
Sarah, 31 of Lexington, is a 2006 graduate of the University of Kentucky and will receive her master's of divinity from the Lexington Theological Seminary in December. She now serves as the student youth minister at First Christian Church in Frankfort.
She says she never intended to become a jet-setting teenage fashion model.
"I grew up playing sports," Sarah said. "It was never on my radar. Growing up, I wanted to be a UK Lady Cat."
On a whim, she decided to enter a model search when she was in the 8th grade and was selected to participate in a competition in Columbus, Ohio.
There, she had to have her picture taken and walk in front of a crowd of agents " one of more than 750 contestants. She said the experience was surreal when she was only 14 years old.
"It was nothing I wanted," Sarah said. "I never grew up wanting to be a model or a beauty queen. I just did it for the heck of it."
Her first modeling job was in Chicago but she quickly had offers to do magazine and catalogue shoots in New York and Tokyo. She even had an offer to model full-time with an annual $75,000 contract but decided to stay in high school.
Eventually, she went to work at Elite Model Management, which was founded in 1972 and today is one of the world's top agencies. Her pictures appeared in 17 Magazine, she modeled for L'Oreal products and worked with celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz.
"Modeling was fun," Sarah said. "You played dress up. Being in front of the camera was a lot like acting. You could portray a different persona."
She had an apartment in New York City and eventually moved to Los Angeles where she attended parties with Hollywood celebrities. However, Sarah refused to take certain kinds of jobs and also insisted on going home for the holidays.
"That cost me jobs," she said. "I didn't play the game. I was really bad at the business. It was never my life."
There were also a lot of negative influences, drugs and alcohol were always available, and Sarah said she drank too much when she was underage. She was also told to lose weight even though she was about 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed about 125 pounds.
"I was a dance major, ran track, I had a great body for what it was," she said. "I was never good enough, so that's really hard on your self-esteem."
Under pressure, Sarah said she gave in and started using diet pills and laxatives. She also saw a doctor who gave her shots but doesn't remember what he prescribed. Sarah said she survived on a can of soup per day, cigarettes and coffee.
"My self-esteem was in the gutter basically," she said. "That's when people said you look the best."
She also started harming her body and suffered from bulimia. Even when she went home to Lexington for big meals on Easter and Thanksgiving she would force herself to throw up afterward.
"I knew I was wrong, you are not supposed to do that on Thanksgiving," she said. "I separated my body and mind. I treated myself like an object."
Even though she was then only 21, Sarah said it was difficult to compete with younger teenage models. She also said it was difficult living with other models and dealing with personality conflicts and catfights.
"I was just a wreck, I was depressed," Sarah said. "I love Kentucky, always liked seeing the horse farms as I was flying in."
Although she had always been active in church, Sarah said she rarely attended services in California because none of her friends would go. She said many people she knew in California are hedonistic and highly individualistic.
"It was the loneliest experience of my life."
After talking to her older sister, she decided to return to Kentucky and "get happy" before going back to Los Angeles.
"I came home, got happy, stayed with my parents who fed me, worked out, got a job at UK, life was grand," she said. "I didn't intend to leave the business when I left LA, but that's what happened."
Eventually, she received a bachelor's in communications from the University of Kentucky. However, she didn't decide to attend seminary until she had a conversation with a youth pastor at lunch one day.
Sarah said she has always been involved with church and enjoyed working with the youth group at the Central Christian Church in Lexington. The youth minister asked her what kind of job she wanted after graduation and she said she didn't care as long as she could do mission trips during the summer and work with the youth on Sunday.
"Those kids give my life purpose," Sarah said. But the minister responded that her life's purpose were the youth. She said it was an epiphany.
From there, she decided to study at Lexington Theological Seminary and she's been the student youth minister at First Christian Church in Frankfort since 2006. She was married once before but is now engaged to Rev. Kyle Brown, youth minister at Maxwell Street Presbyterian Church in Lexington.
Now, she works with a small group of youth at First Christian and helped them make valentines on Wednesday. She also helps teach Sunday school, plan mission trips and sometimes preaches.
"The people here are great," she said.
In addition to her ministerial duties, Sarah said she also hosts workshops across Kentucky where she talks to girls about body image and self-esteem. She decided to help others after being asked to talk at Central Christian Church about her experience in the industry.
Although she's not a psychologist or a nutritionist, Sarah uses her experiences to talk about how body image fits with the Bible and modern media. She said the emphasis on beauty and weight loss in advertising is harmful.
"I talk about how we were created in the image of God," Sarah said. "Our body is a temple."
She also gives out flyers that describe the warning signs of an eating disorder and offers advice on how to help friends who are affected by bulimia or anorexia. Sarah also talked about her experiences with the Frankfort Optimist Club on Tuesday.
Sarah said she doesn't miss much from the modeling world although she did enjoy traveling. However, she said she has still been able to travel to Greece, India and Turkey recently. Sarah also said she's sad sometimes that she hasn't been able to stay in touch with some of her friends who are still models.
She still models sometimes for a small studio in Lexington.
When she's not reading or studying for her theology courses, Sarah's involved with sports and plays on the seminary basketball and volleyball teams.
She also said she'll always have to continue fighting against the urge to give in to eating disorders.
"I still look in mirror and see things I want to fix," she said. "That will stay with me forever."
"Frankfort Faces" is a series that highlights people from within the Frankfort and Franklin County community. Each feature follows one of the city's most unique personalities and includes a story, photos and video, which can be found by clicking the TV icon attached to the story online at state-journal.com.