Gladys Reyes chose a pink dress with yellowish and red flame-like streaks at the top of the front for her prom dress.

“It’s my favorite color,” the Sibley High School senior said while sitting at the kitchen table of her family’s home in West St. Paul this past week.

If there’s a girl anywhere who deserves to wear a pretty dress and look like a princess on this special day, it’s this kid. I remembered the first time I saw her more than six years ago. She was lying on a bed at Regions Hospital’s burn unit, pain etched on her 11-year-old face.

Two months earlier, on Jan. 28, 2007, Reyes was crossing Robert Street and Wentworth Avenue with the light while heading home with a friend when a van struck her. Wedged under the front passenger-side wheel well, the young girl was dragged for nearly a quarter-mile before a Good Samaritan couple stopped the driver and led police to him.

Reyes lost her right arm from below the shoulder and her left leg was mangled and badly scraped in the incident. She underwent more than 20 surgeries and months of rehabilitation. The community responded with several fundraisers and donations, including $240 raised by Joseph Rascher, then a student at a Catholic grammar school who asked well-wishers at his 8th birthday party to give to Gladys rather than buy gifts for him. She rode a fire truck in the city’s annual parade and festival when she was well enough to do so later that year.

THEY STRUGGLE, DRIVER DEPORTED

But everyday life continued for Reyes’ family, and it wasn’t all good. Four years ago, her parents, Jose and Maria, both manual laborers, were forced into foreclosure on their home and had to move into a rental duplex. Mounting medical bills with no health insurance, as well their need to alternate and take indefinite time off to tend to their daughter, took a heavy financial toll. Both lost their jobs. An adjustable-rate mortgage that shot up the monthly payment by $300 did not help, either.

The financial and emotional woes made what happened to the hit-and-run driver — who served a year in prison before he was deported to his native El Salvador — seem almost inconsequential, though the family wanted more prison time.

Although finances are still a struggle, things are a bit better. Both parents are working. Gladys’ older brother, Jose, attends Inver Hills Community College. Her youngest brother, Inocente, attends Heritage Middle School.

‘A SUCCESS STORY’

And Gladys kept her eyes on the prize of the value of education and looking forward, not back, amid tragedy. She learned to write and do everything with her left hand. She got good grades. She got involved with ALMAS, a high school academic and community-outreach program designed for Latino students. She’s graduating in June and hopes to pursue a career as a genetic counselor.

She has been accepted to seven area colleges and universities. But the family doesn’t have the means for her to attend any. The annual tuition ranges from more than $40,000 to about $17,000, including room and board. Reyes knows even the least-inexpensive is financially out of reach for her parents.

“I like Augsburg (College in Minneapolis); it’s close, but it’s really expensive,” she told me. “Winona State is less and a public one, but it’s more than two hours away.”

So she has applied for federal financial aid and sought the help of Upward Bound, a program that helps students apply for scholarships and colleges.

Robert Hanson, a Spanish teacher who helped found ALMAS, believes she will be an asset wherever she goes.

“Gladys Reyes is a success story like very few others,” he wrote in a recommendation letter sent to scholarship funds. “Many kids have grown up in poverty, much like Gladys has. Many kids have had severe medical trauma growing up, much like Gladys has. Many have used either of those barriers as an excuse for withdrawing from society, failing academically, or following bad life pathways.

“Gladys Reyes, on the contrary, has fought hard to overcome those barriers,” Hanson added, “and has achieved at a rate comparable to anyone else. In fact, she performs higher than most students in her class.”

A SPECIAL NIGHT

West St. Paul’s mayor says Reyes also had an impact on public safety.

I relay what Mayor John Zanmiller told me.

“Gladys helped us make the decision to add a pedestrian bridge over Robert Street as part of the rebuild we’re undertaking,” the mayor said. “Though she was actually crossing another road at Robert Street, it really reinforced and personalized the need to look at pedestrian traffic across the road.”

I informed her, even though the incident took place more than six years ago, that I still get an email or a phone call from readers asking me about her and how she’s doing.

“Really? Wow. That makes me feel important,” she said.

Her prom dress, jewelry, shoes and other accessories were donated through the appropriately named Operation Glass Slipper. The program provides such items to hundreds of poor and low-income girls who cannot afford the expenses of a prom.

On Saturday night, Gladys was attending the prom with her date, a boy she has known since fifth grade, as well as a small group of friends who boarded a limousine-coach for the ride to the event.

“Cinderella,” the musical, is playing right now to sold-out audiences on Broadway.

I argue that the real Cinderella, the bright young woman I first met as a shy pre-teen in pain at a hospital, is right here among us.

Ruben Rosario can be reached at 651-228-5454 or rrosario@pioneerpress.com. Follow him on Twitter @nycrican.