Crowning Achievements

Amelie Wilcox is kind of a shapeshifter. Depending on the situation, she might slip gracefully from medical scrubs into a ballgown or business attire. At first glance, she may not strike you as a CEO. A nurse? Yes. Beauty queen? Naturally. Bass player in a band? Sure. It’s true, though. She is Founder and CEO of
her own charitable organization, The Rocke Grace Foundation for Music and Medicine. On top of it all, she has the distinction of being the youngest
Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) in the history of South Dakota.

Also, she’s only 19 years old.

“I got my diploma through Western Dakota Tech while I was dual-enrolled in high school. I started working at Monument Health Rapid City Clinic, Flormann Street, straight away as an LPN inOctober of 2024, once I passed my board exam,” she said.

Amelie created The Rocke Grace Foundation in 2023 while still in high school. The charity’s purpose is to raise funds, advocate for and increase awareness of autoimmune disease throughout South Dakota by bridging music and medicine.

“My grandfather, Rocke Grace, passed away in 2020 and he had lots of autoimmune conditions,” Amelie said. “He was a musician. He was inducted into the South Dakota Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He helped co-write the song ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ with Joe Walsh. Music was his everything. It was his life; it was his passion. On the days that his autoimmune symptoms were really making him struggle, he turned to music. So I created the Rocke Grace Foundation in his honor.”

Autoimmune disease is a broad spectrum of disorders that is often hard to diagnose and treat. Just about everyone in her family has an autoimmune disease.

“Autoimmune disease rarely presents as a single symptom; it is often a spectrum ranging from subtle fatigue to debilitating pain, organ inflammation and life-altering functional decline,” said Esperanza (Hope) Argenziano, M.D., fellowship-trained Rheumatologist at Flormann Street Clinic. “What makes these illnesses particularly challenging is not just their severity, but their unpredictability and the invisible burden patients carry long before a diagnosis is ever made.”

Growing up, Amelie witnessed several family members — especially her grandfather — struggling with autoimmune disorders. However, it wasn’t until she started competing for the Miss South Dakota organization that she began to see a way to help them by bringing their afflictions to light as part of the pageant’s Community Service Initiative.

Amelie currently holds the pageant title of Miss Rolling Plains. In May, she went to Brookings to compete for the Miss South Dakota crown and was awarded first runner-up. “With my lifestyle and all the things I do, I really think every single day is in some way, shape or form preparing me for pageants,” Amelie said, demonstrating some of that quintessentially thoughtful beauty queen composure. “You get to talk about your community service initiative during the onstage portion. I have a coach. She asks me mock interview questions. We work on hot topics to make sure my answers are getting the most out of my interview. She helps me with walking too, and just the overall image I wanted to present at Miss South Dakota.”

For the talent portion of the show, Amelie performed a bass guitar melody of songs from bands like Queen, Michael Jackson and Metallica that reflected how she has learned through music not to give up. “It was exciting as I hadn’t done it before. I didn’t sing during it, though, no one wants to hear that,” she joked.

In Rocke’s passing, Amelie discovered that she felt called to start pursuing music. You could say it is her birthright. She formed a band with her vocalist sister and multi-instrumentalist half-brother. Amelie plays bass. Her dad sits in, too. They play around the Black Hills under the name Rathco. “My brother’s last name is Rathbun, and my sister and I, our last name is Wilcox,” Amelie said. “So we took the ‘co’ from ‘Wilcox’ and the ‘rath’ from ‘Rathbun’ — Rathco. We’ve done a couple benefit concerts in the past, and we’ve been able to donate money to Monument Health.”

Like her band, Amelie’s foundation is a family affair. Her mother, Roxanne Rathbun, is the President. Her grandmother, Deborah Grace, is on the board.

“There are people in the organization who’ve gone through autoimmune treatments. We have people who are really passionate about music and know how to create and host events that help benefit autoimmune disease. It’s really a great mixture of all different sides. I’m extremely honored and grateful for each and every person,” Amelie said.

March is nationally recognized as Autoimmune Disease Awareness Month. For the last two years, Amelie’s foundation has celebrated Autoimmune Disease Awareness Day, March 27. This year, though, they held an event on April 16.

The one common theme tying all of Amelie’s shifting shapes together is her desire to care for patients as a nurse.

Initially, Amelie’s interest in a medical career came from her love of a television show. “I loved ‘Grey’s Anatomy.’ I started watching the show at 14, and I told my mom, ‘Oh my gosh, I want to do that.’ So she got me this little suture kit, and I soon found out that surgery was not for me. Nursing was a lot more my calling,” Amelie said. “I love the ability to go into work every single day, advocate for someone, help their voices be heard and make a difference for that person.”

During her final semester of LPN training, Amelie had a large list of specialties from which she could choose to do her independent study. She chose rheumatology, where she worked alongside Dr. Argenziano. “It’s not guaranteed you get the one you want. It actually worked out that I got to spend my preceptorship with the rheumatology department. It was an incredible experience to be exposed to so many of the people that I get to advocate for with my foundation.”

“Her intelligence is obvious, but it is her instinctive empathy for patients — her ability to truly ‘see’ people in their hardest moments — that makes her extraordinary,” Dr. Argenziano said of Amelie. “She is a beautiful anomaly: a fierce advocate, a natural healer and a young nurse whose passion and heart already rival those of colleagues twice her age. Our Rheumatology staff is made up of some of the most outstanding nurses I have ever had the privilege of working with and she fit right in.”

Returning to full-time student status at Western Dakota Tech last fall, Amelie switched to a floating nurse position at Flormann Clinic for a better balance between school and work. Since then, she’s gotten experience working in Primary Care, Family Medicine, Internal Medicine and Endocrinology. She recently completed her training to become a full-time RN, and is now pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at South Dakota State University, which she will complete in 2027.

Wherever she ends up, you can bet that Amelie will continue to Rock with Grace.

Story by Kory Lanphear
Photos by Erika Bratten-Cianca