Claflin rallies to help a hometown legend beat cancer

Jackie Stiles

Kansans are at their best during difficult times. How many stories have been written about neighbors postponing their own wheat harvest to help a sick friend or relative? Or a community coming together to support others — often strangers — in the wake of a tornado or some other natural disaster?

Claflin and its 624 residents are certainly no exception to the Kansas Way.

Several weeks ago, the community learned that one of its own, Jackie Stiles, had been diagnosed with ocular melanoma, a disease so rare it affects only six in 1 million. Friday, the basketball standout who grew up in Claflin and graduated from the high school there, is set to undergo radiation on the tumor that is wrapped around her ocular nerve.

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