Sean Glanville
Special to the Tribune
Williams Lake’s Lauren Pilszek's outgoing and bubbly personality has given her the opportunity to win not only one major media competition but two, all in the past calendar year.
Last summer Pilszek won a competition through Country 103 radio in Kamloops for a meet and greet with Academy Award winner Kevin Costner.
“I figured I had to do something original to win the contest so I made a rap about Kevin Costner,” Pilszek laughed.
Costner’s band Modern West was playing a free concert at Sun Peaks last July and Pilszek and friend Amy Sutton were invited on stage to sing their rap to 4,000 fans.
The pair got autographs and photos with the Dances With Wolves star and were invited to have dinner with Costner after the concert.
Pilszek, a Columneetza grad, won her second major vote-in competition this past summer becoming an Oakley Canada Ambassador. Elle Magazine put out a contest where participants were to send a photo, write-up and a video outlining why they would be a good ambassador for Oakley.
“It was done by an online voting process and I ended up getting the most votes in the B.C. and Alberta region,” Pilszek said.
Pilszek’s co-worker and friend Tammy Uyeda won the competition last year and told her she should sign up. She was exactly what they were looking for as the active 25-year-old leads a very active lifestyle which includes soccer, hiking, running, tennis and swimming.
“I had no idea about the contest until Tammy told me I should enter, and I won. I don’t know what it is with me and winning these contests, it’s strange,” Pilszek laughed.
Her Oakley Ambassador work involves about 10 hours a week of putting on active living events and advertising them through social video.
“I usually put on one event per month and so far I have done a bootcamp, yoga and stand-up paddling,” Pilszek said. “They have all filled up really fast and we had as much as 30 people for some events.”
Oakley also sent Pilszek on an all-expense-paid trip to Laguna Beach, California in mid-June. She was sent along with fellow Canadian Oakley ambassador Virginie Duval, from Quebec.
“We visited Oakley headquarters in Los Angeles, and went to Huntingdon Beach and Catalina Island. It was four days of touring around and was a great experience,” said Pilszek.
Pilszek is currently in the process of moving and changing careers. She has worked as a Kinesiologist the past two years in Kamloops but is leaving for Calgary to become an Ultrasound Technician. She is heading back to university this Fall at SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology).