Rivers Bryan’s planner is getting a lot of use these days.
Whenever the Oak Hill Academy junior hears about an assignment, a club meeting or any other task she needs to complete, Bryan, 16, puts it straight into her planner in order to stay organized.
For Bryan — who is the junior class president, is part of six clubs, is a varsity cheerleader and plays two other sports — it’s not always easy to balance those responsibilities.
“It’s hard to juggle my social life and my school life and everything,” she said.
Throw in a burgeoning modeling career — a current contract with Dillard’s is gaining Bryan considerable acclaim — and the Oak Hill junior is busier than ever.
She wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I’ve always been motivated to keep going,” Bryan said.
‘It’s hard work, but I love it’
On Oct. 20, Bryan got a text from her manager at Atlanta-based Ursula Wiedmann Models with a question: Was she available to do ads for Dillard’s, which operates nearly 300 department stores in 29 states?
“I was like, ‘What?'” Bryan said. “I was freaking out.”
She and her mother, Amy, made the five-and-a-half-hour drive to the store’s Little Rock, Arkansas, headquarters for the first time Oct. 28. They’ve been back every week since and have developed a routine.
They stay in a hotel room about 10 minutes away and wake up at 5:30 a.m. to get ready. Bryan models from 7 a.m. to noon before a one-hour lunch break and goes for another three hours before heading back.
“It’s hard work, but I love it,” Bryan said.
On the way to her second shoot for Dillard’s, she checked the store’s website to see if her photos had been published yet — always a nerve-racking experience.
“Whenever you’re modeling, you don’t know how the pictures are going to turn out,” Bryan said. “They could either be awful, or they could be great.”
Good ones end up on Bryan’s Instagram profile, where she has more than 8,800 followers. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, with live shoots limited, social media has become a way for models to put themselves out there. For Bryan, it’s working: Agencies fill her comments and messages with compliments and requests for “collabs.”
“It’s just crazy,” said Bryan, who signed with Ursula Wiedmann a month after her 14th birthday. “I was just a little girl — didn’t think I was going to make it this far or make it to modeling for a store as big as Dillard’s. It’s crazy to me.”
Getting by
As hectic as Bryan’s modeling responsibilities can be, her obligations at school match them — and then some.
Often, she’s leaving after basketball practice in the afternoon to head to Little Rock, modeling the next day and getting back at 10 or 11 p.m. before an early-morning club meeting.
In addition to cheerleading, basketball and track and field (freshman year, she finished second in the state in the high jump), Bryan is president of her class, vice president of the Student Government Association and vice president of Anchor Club, which does community service. She’s also a member of the school’s yearbook staff, National Honor Society and Sports Media Club as well as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes prayer team.
Still, Bryan finds the time to keep up with her schoolwork, thanks in part to teachers who have all been lenient and flexible. On the way back from her trips to Little Rock, Bryan fills out worksheets and does other assignments; when she gets home, she makes sure everything is done and goes straight to bed.
Weekends, at least, offer Bryan a bit of a break — she’s able to go to college football games and hang out with friends. And while her modeling career can make it hard to maintain a social life when added to her schoolwork and her extracurricular activities, Bryan doesn’t mind.
“At the end of the day, I think it’s all worth it because it’s something that I really love and really want to do,” she said.
Taking off
This summer, Bryan had plans to go to Mexico City and model for Wanted & Bang, an agency affiliated with Ursula Weidmann.
But when the pandemic hit in March, Bryan took a look around and saw everything shutting down: restaurants, airports. She knew she wouldn’t be able to “live her dream” in Mexico.
“It just kind of hit hard, and it made me really upset,” she said.
Still, Bryan knows the best is yet to come. She’ll turn 17 on Dec. 12 and said the following birthday should open new doors.
“I think when you turn 18, that’s really when your career will really take off because you’re not a minor anymore, so there’s not as many limitations as when you are a minor,” Bryan said.
Bryan plans to follow her sister Sims to Ole Miss and, like her elder sibling, major in sports broadcasting. College and her modeling career will coexist.
“A lot of people think that models just go into modeling because they’re not smart enough to go to school, they’re not smart enough to do anything else,” Bryan said. “I think that’s completely wrong.”
The money she’s already made modeling from Dillard’s — “a lot” — will serve her well if she later decides to move to New York or Los Angeles, both hotspots to which models tend to flock.
And while she’s read that the typical peak age range for models is 18 to 26, Bryan knows that won’t limit what she can do. She mentioned several Victoria’s Secret models who are in their 30s and still going, and she knows she could follow a similar path.
But wherever modeling takes her, Bryan said, she’s all in.
“I want to do this for the rest of my life — or for however long I can,” she said.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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