Mike Scanlon wants people to know Iola has a pretty cool trail system. Scanlon, executive director of the newly-formed nonprofit Kansas Trails Inc., was in town last weekend riding the Lehigh Portland trails.
“One of the best examples of integrating different levels for cyclists that I’ve seen in all of Kansas is right here in Lehigh,” said Scanlon.
He would know. Scanlon is in the final stages of a “Ride 4 Resilience,” a 30-day, 700-mile cycling journey taking him across 60 trails and 50 towns in Kansas.
The goal is to raise money for two causes close to Scanlon’s heart: Kansas Trails, Inc. and GO2 for Lung Cancer.
In 2024, Scanlon was diagnosed with Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer. He credits a rare biomarker (EGFR Exon 19 deletion) and targeted therapy (Tagrisso by AstraZeneca) for keeping him – for the time being, he notes – free of cancer. Scanlon hopes to raise awareness for the need to support additional biomarker testing and cancer research. GO2 for Lung Cancer is the nation’s top lung cancer advocacy organization.
Kansas Trails Inc. springs from Scanlon’s passion for trail networks and his conviction of their power to help rural communities.
Years ago, Scanlon worked to create the Kansas Association of Trail Towns. The group expanded, and eventually the Sunflower Foundation approached Scanlon with the request to scale the project to include all of Kansas. Scanlon was all in.
“All these little trails across Kansas can be economic drivers for their communities,” said Scalon. “We have all these rail trail and rail bank groups, but we needed to tie them all together.” Kansas Trails Inc. serves as that umbrella organization. It officially became a nonprofit this June.
If the connections between cancer research and Kansas trail networks don’t seem obvious at first glance, they are to Scanlon.
“When you think about what trails can do for their communities, most trails survive because of their resilience. It’s because of a group of dedicated community members. Usually, they don’t have a lot of money. It’s often just volunteers with chainsaws,” said Scanlon.
“Trails aren’t the first thing people think of when they want to improve their community. But the health aspects, and the mental health aspects – trails make a huge difference. They connect people to where they live and build resiliency.
“With cancer, it’s often an individual battle. A personal resilience. It’s one day to the next. That mental makeup matches what I see in communities. ‘What do we have to do today to get better?’ That mentality is shared by both groups,” he observed.
SCANLON has learned some lessons from his travels.
First, “I had no idea we had so many disc golf courses in Kansas,” he said with a chuckle. “If I go to Fort Scott, their trail connects to a disc golf course. The same is true in Iola, Great Bend, Russell – of all the things I’ve stumbled across, I just had no idea. They’re all over the place.”
Second: Kansans are really nice. “The politics of today make it seem like everyone’s either for or against something,” said Scanlon. “But here I am on a country road in Mankato, ten miles from everywhere. A dog comes and barks at me, and he’s not stopping, so I throw my water bottle at him. He grabs the bottle and runs away, but now I’m in the middle of nowhere, and I’m really thirsty.
“So I flag down the first car I see, and he stops,” Scanlon remembers. “The guy asks me if he can help, and I say, ‘Can you please take me to the Mankato Public Library?’ He gives me a ride. And on the way into town, we had a wonderful conversation about food deserts in Kansas.” Scanlon still remembers the stranger’s name.
