Meet Logan Marie Torres

Today we’d like to introduce you to Logan Marie Torres.

Logan Marie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I am a part-time student and an Army Reserve soldier. I also have a civilian job and am a competitive athlete.

I grew up in modeling and pageantry so I am still very much involved in those worlds. Whether it is within those realms or in others, I am out to find as much adventure, growth, and challenge as possible.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been the complete opposite of a smooth road, but that is what has made it valuable. My obstacles have come in different forms throughout the years. As a kid, it was the challenge of wanting to do pageants and being unable to afford them. I had to find sponsors, write letters, do interviews, babysit, find other jobs in order to pay the entrance fees to participate. The same went for ice skating lessons.

While pageants were my responsibility to earn funds for, my parents did pay for many skating lessons until I was of an age to continue learning the value of a dollar. As I got older I continued to earn that privilege as well and work to pay for training. I do consider participating in a sport, especially an expensive one like skating a privilege and a blessing. It was valuable for me to learn to truly work for what I desired. I was that much more focused at practices because I did not take for granted what it meant to be at each training session.

As I continued to grow up I pursued modeling passionately and was told for years that I was not the right height, right proportions, or didn’t have good enough skin. Certainly, for the traditional 5’9″ standard ( I was not seemingly going to grow any taller than 5’6″) I WAS too short. Up until a certain point, I did have bad teenage skin, and I knew that my proportions were healthy and my own and they weren’t about to change.

So I just kept on going to castings, workshops, booking jobs, making connections, walking and modeling like I was taller. I received countless “no”s and still do because of my height, but have developed a diverse portfolio that I am proud of and a pretty good career. I have modeled in different states and countries for various agencies and freelanced for a while. I was nominated as a 303 Magazine Model of the Year candidate in 2015.

By the time I was 18 I was established and experienced as a model and pageant queen but had only just begun the steps of the rest of my life. It is not uncommon knowledge that being a first-generation student can make higher education an intimidating task for some students. I like to point out that part of my story though because it truly was an obstacle in my experience.

I like to give a shout out to first-generation students because college really is a lot to get a grip on at first. With the right resources and focus though I have happily adapted to higher education life. I do have to pay my way for my education, but I have and will always consider it to be a cherished investment in myself.

The challenges that made for a rocky road as a young adult have been much more severe and truly life-changing. I am a survivor of assault. An incident of assault occurred about halfway through my academic career. It was not, however, my first instance of sexual assault. My stomach twists as I disclose this because statistics show that I am one of many victims. It breaks my heart and makes me angry to say that that part of my story is unjustly common. However, it is only part of my story.

I fought depression, anxiety, and a lack of direction for a significant period of time after the legal ramifications finally wrapped up. I even dropped out of school because I was not able to focus or feel healthy. After months of healing and lacking much presence in the world I enlisted in the United States Army Reserve. When people ask me why I made such a drastic life change I emphasize that I needed to go someplace where nobody knew that I was the broken assaulted girl from campus, or the pageant queen from Denver. I wanted to be in a position to rebuild myself without presumptions of what I was capable of due to my background and my newly minted scars. I wanted to do something that had a greater purpose.

That, of course, was also a challenge because I was met with a surprising amount of negative feedback about my decision both inter-personally and on social media. I was hounded, even by strangers who only knew me as a model. Plenty of people made it clear that I should stay in my “own realm” or that I wasn’t going to be successful in the military. These have been the most landmark struggles that I note in my life leading up to this point.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
I focus on continuing to challenge myself since my life and faith have shown me that a limitless mindset provides limitless potential. My challenges to myself are sometimes as simple as forcing myself to journal every day or as complex as regular counseling to do self-work. Some challenges are as entwined in my regular life as mastering a new skill in competitive figure skating, or as random as scuba diving. I used to have a phobic fear of deep water and big fish. I decided scuba diving was going to end that fear.

I got my certification and after my first few dives and a night dive, I have overcome that fear. I was on the verge of having complete meltdowns as I endeavored into this choice, but I am so grateful that I had supportive people to help me learn and overcome. Now I can’t get enough of diving or big fish and deep water. The reason for such an aggressive mindset towards challenges is because of how rich it has made my life and how enriching it has been to help others adopt the same mindset.

It is one of the coolest gifts that I have, by no credit to myself alone, that I am able to relate to so many different people and their journeys because my own is so diverse. This includes the really negative things that have occurred in my life.

I am planning to make a career out of helping other people challenge their limits in other ways by working in prosthetic physical therapy with veterans. I am excited to help overcome challenges that have been handed to the people that I will be blessed and privileged to work with. It would be my honor to get to encompass skills, stories, and the mindset I have developed over the years into work.

So many people worked hard to aid in developing my mindset, and in helping me overcome my challenges. It would be a complete waste of their contributions and my experiences to not use them to serve others. I hope having served in the military myself will provide a context that will also make me even better at my job.

This challenging, adventuring, limitless mindset also leaves room for absolutely anything to happen in my future. My life is testimony that just about anything can and will happen anyway. I’m ready for it.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
There are so many proud moments… a stand out though is my promotion to Sergeant in the Army. It was a nod to my past self, who I could see standing in a rank-less uniform on day one of basic training confused and stressed. It was also a nod to all of the people who told me I was not going to be successful in the military or that I am too small, too weak, or too “girly”.

It was a humbling reminder that whether I was in heels or combat boots I had to earn my way and work hard. That time around my hard work was being rewarded and I was so grateful. A lot of people work hard their entire lives and don’t get recognition or awards or a place where they gain rank from it. I am so blessed to be on this path and experience these things as I go.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://loganmariedenver.weebly.com/
• Email: loganmariedenver@outlook.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lomariedenver/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/loganmariedenver/
• Other: https://loganmariedenver.wixsite.com/asprettydoes?fbclid=IwAR23Xl2ak0Om2wV5bP8ImZi0TwDfFVIQlvdjf4mP8C00T1nLwXZGLEZeV-c

Image Credit:
Personal: Ryan Tortelli (Persona Studios) and Trevor Ray Thompson Photography

Skating: Photography: Nicole Marcelli
Makeup: Mel Akana McIntosh
Hair: Tia Garland
Dress: Bobbi Akana

Pageant: Hung Viet Trinh Photography

Laughing Fall: Jackie Wilson Photography

Motorcycle: Marco Briones Photography

Pageant: AJ Photoz

Suggest a story: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.