As a senior nursing student at UNMC, Mary Bosshardt lives to “make every day count” by helping people cope with death.
Last fall, Bosshardt, 22, was crowned Miss Douglas County 2005 with her platform “make every day count” – hospice family care. Since then, she has spent 20 to 30 hours a week working in and promoting hospice care while attending school.
“It’s the death and grieving that draws me toward it,” said Bosshardt, who learned to deal with death at a young age. She saw 12 of her friends buried between eighth grade and her senior year in high school. “I learned early about the coping and grieving process of hospice care,” she said.
Hospice care provides compassionate care for people facing a life-limiting illness or injury and involves a team-oriented approach to expert medical care, pain management, and emotional and spiritual support tailored to the patient’s needs and wishes. Hospice care is available to anyone. It usually is provided in the home, but also is offered in hospice centers, hospitals, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
“Hospice is something I feel I’m called to do,” Bosshardt said. “I believe God wants me to do this.”
Bosshardt admits working in hospice and attending school at the same time can be difficult. “Sometimes my studies don’t get priority, but I try to balance the two,” she said.
After graduation, Bosshardt plans to work in a hospice or hospital program allowing her to work in pediatric oncology with children suffering from terminal cancer. Her goal is to become a national director of hospice and to build “Haley’s Hospice House” in western Nebraska.
Bosshardt also takes time to talk with children about learning to cope and grieve after losing a friend. She helps children after a classmate dies by teaching them to preserve the memory of their friend. Bosshardt says children often fear forgetting a friend or being forgotten when they die, but by using activities such as collages, journals and memory boxes, children can record memories to better understand a scary subject like death.
In order to teach the importance of preserving a memory, Bosshardt is currently working on a children’s book called “Healing Heart.” The book is a compilation of stories told by children about their memories of a lost loved one and will help teach other children how to grieve.
“Hospice care and speaking to children are intertwined,” Bosshardt said. “One focuses on death before it occurs while the other focuses on death after it occurs.”
As Miss Douglas County 2005, Bosshardt has the opportunity to take her hospice care platform to the Miss Nebraska competition this week in North Platte. This will be her fourth year competing at the state pageant.
Bosshardt has earned more than $15,000 in cash scholarship and $250,000 in tuition scholarships from the Miss America program, and says many people’s misconceptions about the program are altered once she explains the good it does for the community. “People are usually very accepting about it,” Bosshardt said.
According to the Miss America Organization, each year Miss America state and local titleholders, along with the organization’s network of 300,000 volunteers, participate in more than 12,000 community-service projects, providing in excess of 500,000 service hours to worthy causes. The Miss America Organization is the world’s largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women.
Bosshardt said she’s a cowgirl at heart with experience in riding, roping, branding and vaccinating. She is the daughter of Tom and Carol Bosshardt of Hastings, and has a sister, Anne Schmall. She said her four horses — Bay, Scooby, Crush and Cash — help her spiritually after constantly dealing with a subject like death.
Bosshardt graduated from Kearney High in 2001 and did undergraduate studies at Chadron State and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln before transferring to UNMC for a bachelor of science in nursing degree. Her previous titles include Miss Northwest, Miss Chadron and Miss Metro.
“Hopefully, I’ll soon be Miss Nebraska,” Bosshardt said. “I think I’m ready.”
For information about how to get involved with hospice care, visit www.hospicehouseomaha.org or call directly at (402) 343-8600. Also, feel free to e-mail Bosshardt at mary_bosshardt@hotmail.com for more information.