Columnist Susan Snyder: Manriquez a great state rep

Friday, Aug. 1, 2003 | 4:48 a.m.

Nevada hasn't conducted a Ms. Wheelchair Nevada pageant since 1986, when the state winner went on to become Ms. Wheelchair America.

Yvonne Manriquez plans to change that. And if anyone can do it, she can.

"I don't do, 'No,' " the 49-year-old Las Vegas woman said. "If you give out negative, you'll get back negative."

Life has dealt Manriquez a lot of what many people would consider negative.

She was born with spina bifida, a congenital condition affecting the spinal cord. She walked on her own until seventh grade. Her weakened state required her to use leg braces and crutches. She moved to Las Vegas with a girlfriend just after her 19th birthday and studied at the Community College of Southern Nevada.

At church one Sunday, a child prankster spent the morning turning off the light every time a woman entered the restroom. Manriquez fell in the dark twice, breaking her right femur in three places. The resulting paralysis required her to use a wheelchair.

But Manriquez took it in stride.

"I just got used to it," she shrugged.

She also married, had two children and took a job as the clerk in charge of making sure the U.S. Navy ships dispatched from her husband's naval base had enough produce.

They divorced after seven years and she did the single-mom gig for the next 10. She moved back to Las Vegas, where she met Frank Manriquez. They've been married five years.

But for all that is normal, people still are quick to note differences. She recalled a trip to Kmart in which she was pushing her wheelchair and the cart containing her toddler son.

"A woman walked up to me and said, 'He's cute. Where did you get him?' And I said, 'The blue-light special over there. It was a great deal,' " Manriquez said. "People think if your legs don't work, your mind doesn't work."

That's why she entered the Ms. Wheelchair America this year. The contest was started in 1974 to give women with disabilities a showcase for their personal accomplishments and to educate the public about disability issues.

Manriquez learned of the pageant through a counselor at the state vocational rehabilitation services office in Las Vegas. The agency helped her acquire the computer and other necessities to launch a home-based Barbie doll collectors' business. She buys and sells the classic dolls over the Internet, at auctions and at trade shows.

"I thought it (the pageant) was a great opportunity to be a spokesperson for the disabled," she said.

She didn't place this year. But she attracted national pageant officials' attention. They asked her to reinstate Nevada's competition, last conducted in 1986. Its winner, Donna Cline, went on to win the national title that year.

The contest withered in 1987 when the state cut its funding. Manriquez figures she'll find the sponsors and support she needs. She raised $3,000 in about two weeks to pay her expenses for the trip to July's national contest in Iowa.

"It would be really great if she could pull it off," her husband Frank said of a Nevada pageant.

"I can," Manriquez added, using two words that never fail her no matter what else does.