Melanie Eckman, a 73-year-old San Tan Valley great-grandmother, has until Friday evening to finish first in her voting group and move on to the semifinals of a national modeling competition that ends on a runway at New York Fashion Week.

Eckman is a quarterfinalist in Next Runway Star, which advances contestants by public vote. Quarterfinalists must place first in their assigned group to reach the semifinals, and her group closes Friday, Aug. 28, at 7 p.m. Arizona time. The overall winner walks in the Rise Fashion Show during New York Fashion Week and receives $20,000.

A mother of five, grandmother and great-grandmother, Eckman says she is not a professional model or an influencer, and that she is competing against working models and social media personalities who already know how to pose and promote. What she brings instead, she says, is 73 years of living: five children raised, a career built, three husbands outlived, and a diagnosis of Addison's disease that left her more determined rather than less.

"For years, I thought fine lines meant doors were closing. Now I see them differently: I earned them," Eckman said in her submission to SanTanValley.com.

She entered, she says, to change what people picture when they hear the word senior. More than one in five Arizonans is 65 or older, Eckman noted, and she wants to show that getting older does not mean fading out of view.

How to Vote

Voting is free and open to anyone. Each person can cast one free vote per day on Eckman's competition page at nextrunwaystar.com/2026/melanie-eckman, which asks for a quick Facebook verification the first time. The competition also sells charity votes, and that money goes to Rise, a nonprofit that advocates for survivors of sexual assault. Eckman says that charitable tie is part of why she entered.

If she wins the $20,000, she says she plans to help someone in need and to travel to Ireland and Scotland to trace her family's ancestry.

Free daily voting closes Friday, Aug. 28, at 7 p.m. Arizona time.