Photos by dean Knuth / arizona daily star

More Photos (2):

Other articles by Rhonda Bodfield:

Work-site training for teachers TUSD recruited elsewhere amid layoffsTUSD seeks end to deseg orderMost AZ high school students would fail US citizenship testVail teacher, Tucson students win science awardsHohokam challenge excites new principal Teachers learn to be as good as their words More TUSD language classes'Father Fred' leaves Salpointe after 9 yearsHead of Salpointe Catholic High School to step down

Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President Finance and Accounting
Charles E. Gillman Company
Accounting Specialist Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic Sales and Marketing
Everready Glass
Sales Reps

For just a short time on Sunday, children who have spent too much of their young lives in shapeless paper gowns under fluorescent hospital lights traded it all in for princess dresses and flashing strobe lights.

At the Runway for Research event, there was a reprieve from talk of chemotherapy and of bone pain and surgeries.

Instead, it was all about fashions and fittings for the 38 young models who either had personal struggles with cancer or watched a sibling deal with it.

What they lacked in catwalk slink, they made up with cuteness and resilience.

The show was the brainchild of Colin Easom, who along with wife, Lina, had to make unbearable choices.

Three days after their daughter, Ilaria, had her third birthday, doctors found a 4-inch tumor in her chest that had collapsed her right lung, squeezed her heart and wrapped itself around her trachea.

They agreed to extensive screenings to give doctors a road map, even though they understood the radiation exposure could leave her more prone to adult cancers later.

They agreed to extremely high doses of chemotherapy, even though they knew it would trigger significant hearing loss.

The only thing keeping the tumor from collapsing Ilaria's airways were her muscles, which would relax under anesthesia. She nearly died on the operating table.

Two years later, Ilaria is in remission — an irrepressible, go-for-it little girl with bouncy Shirley Temple curls who did a ladylike curtsy Sunday before leaping off the stage with both feet. She doesn't remember much about her prolonged hospital stay but is very conscious that she made it through while some of her friends have not.

"When she got to a point where she was safe and out of danger and our lives settled down more, we just thought, 'We can't let another kid go through this,' " Easom recalled.

So Easom, the director of library services for the Art Institute of Tucson, worked with the local non-profit group Tee Up for Tots to produce the benefit, which raised $3,000 in last year's debut for the pediatric cancer research unit of the Steele Children's Research Center at the University of Arizona. Organizers did not know Sunday how much the new event raised.

The second annual show, which took place at the Sheraton Tucson Hotel, featured models between the ages of 2 and 18 showing ensembles made by Art Institute students and faculty members. The young models were accompanied onstage by a member of their respective medical teams.

The outfits were donated to the children at the end of the event.

Connor Riordan was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2006 when he was still a toddler. The surgeries left him with weakness in his left side, but that didn't stop the kindergartner from playing to the crowd Sunday, blowing kisses and doing a little dance with his own unique styling.

Mark Punske, a 14-year-old who has been cancer-free for 12 years, came onstage hungry, like any other teenage boy, carrying a half-eaten chocolate- chip cookie.

Amelia Brueggemann, 5, will be finished with her two-year-long regimen of chemotherapy treatments in March.

The impish kindergartner was taken aback by the size of the ballroom, with some 300 chairs, and drew courage from Mom's leg. But in no time, she was transfixed by rotating apricot and turquoise lights on the ceiling and was excited about wearing her "princess dress." By the time she took the runway, she had the crowd's adoration.

Designer Cori Bailey, 33, who will graduate in December, crafted a sea-foam-green dress, along with a cropped jacket and a necklace of pearls and ribbons. "It's fun and it looks girlie, but it's still practical," Bailey said.

First-year graphic-design student Krystal Robles, 22, donated her services for the event's programs, the event logo and a T-shirt for each sibling with the photos of all the participants on it. She said she joined the effort in part to get real-world experience, and in part because she lost her heart to the kids.

"Anytime you hear a child is sick, it's hard. You go through anger and confusion. And it makes you ask yourself what it was you were whining about in your life before," she said.

Tiffany Zook, a pediatric nurse who had several patients in the modeling lineup, cheered and clapped through the whole thing. "For me, this event is validation of the fact that 78 percent of them survive. That's huge."

Pam Scroggins, a 41-year-old designer, survived breast cancer and the subsequent rounds of chemotherapy in 2005. She didn't know anyone in the event but just came to support the cause. "I get chills thinking about children being sick, period, but to think of a helpless child having gone through what I did, I just think it's amazing that there are groups like this that will take time to help."

The crowd oohed at the little ones and collectively marveled at the sky-high heels worn by Hannah Patton, 18, who had chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant after her 2007 diagnosis.

The biggest applause came every time it was announced that a child was in remission.

Alex Rivera, a 16-year-old who was diagnosed six months ago with a rare form of leukemia, is normally a baggy-jeans sort of guy. He tapped into an alter ego, though, to work a funky combination of skinny jeans, a fedora, a fuchsia scarf and a vest over a long-sleeved shirt.

His mother, Angela Moreno, a 38-year-old computer technician, tears up thinking about the day her son was diagnosed. He had been uncharacteristically exhausted, his eyes rolling back and his body quaking, when she brought him to the hospital. They were unprepared for what the doctors said hours later.

"Alex had always been a perfectly healthy child, and now to hear this, I just felt like I was in the dark," Moreno said. "But you don't realize how strong kids are until something like this happens."

He didn't need to have chemotherapy because he's on an oral medication, so he's kept his long locks, but with a compromised immune system, the sophomore is now adapting to online school. A fan of BMX bikes, he has switched to video games and admits to being a bit insecure about how his friends have reacted to his illness.

But Alex said the struggle has given him more spiritual strength. He's looking for a volunteer activity and now wants to either be a doctor or a policeman to help others. "I feel like I'm stronger now because I see things in a different way."

His tests this month showed no cancer cells.

With his characteristic flair, he worked the runway and danced at the end, grinning and teasing his doctor. It's the sort of joie de vivre you might expect from a kid who recently wrote a letter to his cancer, saying that he wasn't going to be an easy mark. "When you came into my life, you didn't count on a kid like me," he wrote. "Now, I'm not stuck with you. You're stuck with me."