Columnist Susan Snyder: Miss Nevada states case in crusade

Friday, July 22, 2005 | 4:59 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursday and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

WEEKEND EDITION

July 23-24, 2005

Crystal Wosik's Miss America pageant platform is also her personal battle.

It's the same issue the 22-year-old Las Vegas native trumpeted when crowned Miss Nevada earlier this month, and one she says her family continues to face -- keeping a positive attitude during cancer recovery.

"My brother was diagnosed with bone cancer four years ago," Wosik said last week during a telephone conversation from Southern California, where she was attending a cancer benefit.

"He's 18 now, and he's in remission," Wosik said. "But I met this girl during his therapy, and she had a cancer benefit here. So I went to that."

Wosik usually isn't on the sidelines. In the period following her brother's diagnosis, Wosik started a one-woman crusade to help families fighting the cancer war.

She calls it PACE, which stands for Positive Attitudes Change Everything. It's not an official group or charity. It's her personal philosophy. And under that moniker Wosik uses her talent for performing and teaching dance to host benefit shows that raise money to help cancer families.

"We'll get a theater for free, get dance companies to come out and whatever we take in we'll give away to families to help with their medical bills or whatever," she said.

She chooses families with the help of her brother, as the family meets a lot of those in similar circumstances through his ongoing treatment. They don't raise a lot of money -- a few hundred dollars here and there -- but every little bit helps.

Landa York, operations director for Candlelighters for Childhood Cancer in Las Vegas, said Wosik's brother is among their clients, and the charity has received donations from his older sister's efforts.

"She is very much a sweet person," York said. "She's generated some money our direction. But she is so dedicated toward her family, and that's important. This is very much a family disease."

Some 50 to 75 Las Vegas Valley children are diagnosed with cancer each year, York said.

"We lost eight of them to the disease in 18 days this year, and within those days we had five new diagnoses," she said.

Wosik will be hosting another dance benefit in Indiana when she travels there to choreograph a show in a few weeks.

Her charity work, classes at Orange Coast College in Los Angeles, where she is studying communications, and preparing for January's Miss America pageant in Atlantic City means she can practice her own dancing "only" four hours a day.

"It's my love," she says of the art. "When I've had a stressful day, I can just go to a ballet lesson. It's an escape route."

Escapes are important. Though her brother is in remission, he still is tested monthly to see if the cancer has returned.

The experience, Wosik said, has given her some very poignant messages to impart when she talks with students in her role as Miss Nevada. No doubt, they are lessons she will carry with her if crowned Miss America.

"I tell them you never know what life throws you," she said. "One day you don't even say, 'I love you' to your brother. And the next day he's in the hospital.

"You need to live each day for the moment and for the future."