Transgender Top Model got local start
http://www.gazette.net/stories/10162008/hyatnew175353_32476.shtml (http://www.gazette.net/stories/10162008/hyatnew175353_32476.shtml)
10/16/2008
As a student at Charles Herbert Flowers High School in Springdale,
Darrell Walls filled the pages of his notebooks with sketches of
shoes, handbags and evening gowns. His preoccupation with fashion made
him the target of ridicule from his peers, but has more recently
brought him into the spotlight in the fashion and modeling industry.
This season, Walls was a contestant on Tyra Banks' reality television
show, "America's Next Top Model," which was filmed in New York. If
fans of the show don't recall Walls, however, it is an understandable
faux pas. The world now knows him as Isis King, the first transgender
person to compete in the show's runway walks and photo shoots for a
shot at a coveted one-year modeling contract.
Although King didn't make it into the final rounds of the show,
eliminated after a poor photo shoot, she said her participation helped
validate her decision to change gender.