JOPLIN, Mo. —
Sarah Burkybile was remembered Sunday by family and friends as an inspiration to all, regardless of whether they were coping with cancer.
“No diagnosis was ever going to keep her down,” said Burkybile’s younger sister, Megan Tyler. “I don’t know half these people, and in some way or shape she’s inspired them to do something for others.”
The family and friends of Burkybile, who had been a strong local advocate for breast-cancer awareness, held a memorial service and celebration of her life on Sunday afternoon at McClelland Park in Joplin. Burkybile, 31, died Aug. 30 at her home following a five-year battle with breast cancer.
Kim Sanders, a Joplin physician, knew Burkybile through the Hope 4 You Breast Cancer Foundation, for which Burkybile had served as president and Sanders serves as secretary to the board of directors.
“It really didn’t become about Sarah,” Sanders said. “She wanted to make young women aware it could happen to them. She was so amazing because she didn’t just think of herself.”
Sanders said Burkybile, who was diagnosed with the disease in 2007 at the age of 26, devoted herself to spreading awareness and educating other young adults that cancer can strike at any age. She attended conferences about cancer and young adults, and was “very public” with the details of her own battle with the disease, she said.
“Every time she got in front of a camera or a group of people, she told her story,” she said.
Perhaps Burkybile’s greatest accomplishment, Sanders said, was her organization of Surviving Together With Hope, a survivor-run support group for cancer patients. The group, which meets once a month, was so important to Burkybile that she requested it continue in her absence.
Burkybile had made it her mission to assist other people with their own battles with cancer, her sister said. Burkybile didn’t want others to face what she was facing, and she tried to help other cancer patients learn from her own situation, she said.
“If it wasn’t going to work for her, she was going to make it work for someone else,” she said.
Tyler, of Joplin, said she believes her sister will continue to touch other people’s lives, even after her death, simply because of the presence she had established during her life.
“It takes some people an entire lifetime to do what she did in five years, and she wasn’t even trying to do that — it just happened,” her sister said. “She was just trying to make her life as great as possible.”
Melanie Tyler, Burkybile’s mother, said her daughter was devoted to her family, and the two spoke on the phone nearly every day.
“I always compared her to a bottle of champagne,” her mother said. “You never knew what flavor you were going to get, but you knew it would always be fun.”
Her mother, also of Joplin, recalls that in Burkybile’s final days, it became difficult for her to speak, as the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes around her trachea and throat. That stressed her daughter, who always had something to say, she said. One day, she asked her daughter what she wanted her legacy to be.
“She said, ‘I just want people to tell my story,’” Tyler said. “‘Just one person to keep telling my story.’”
Support group
Surviving Together With Hope, a support group for breast cancer survivors, meets at 6:30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each month at 532 S. Main St. in Joplin. For more information on programs offered by the Hope 4 You Breast Cancer Foundation, go to hope4youbcf.org.
Local News
Related Photos
-
Megan Tyler (center), sister of Sarah Burkybile, helps release 32 balloons during a memorial service and celebration of Sarah's life on Sunday afternoon at McClelland Park in Joplin.
-
Melanie Tyler, mother of Sarah Burkybile, looks at photos of her daughter during a memorial service and celebration of Sarah's life on Sunday afternoon at McClelland Park in Joplin. Burkybile, 31, died Aug. 30 at her home following a five-year battle with breast cancer. Globe | B.W. Shepherd
Discussion
Family, friends honor breast-cancer advocate Sarah Burkybile
- Local News
-
-
Families, friends invited to honor veterans with flags this weekend
Small lengths of plastic pipe have been installed behind the headstones of veterans graves in Joplin cemeteries so that every veteran will have a flag on Memorial Day.
-
Events, activities planned to honor veterans Monday
No ceremonies are planned at Joplin cemeteries this year or at Mount Hope Cemetery in Webb City, but a number of other events are scheduled in cities around the region.
-
Oklahoma gets far more than its share of disasters
Many states get hit frequently with tornadoes and other natural catastrophes, but Oklahoma is Disaster Central.
-
Sheriff’s funds to pay for two building projects
Jasper County’s general fund budget may pay some initial costs for renovating and constructing two county buildings, but the final bill for the projects will come from law enforcement sales tax funds.
-
Joplin Board of Education to decide fate of East Middle School teacher
After hearing nearly 10 hours of testimony from more than a dozen witnesses and accepting more than 45 exhibits into evidence, members of the Joplin Board of Education voted to move behind closed doors Thursday night to decide whether Randy Turner, a communication arts teacher at East Middle School, will continue to teach.
-
Memorial Day travelers bemoan high gas prices
Norm Hayward and his wife, Claudia, have a couple of things going for them as they continue their increasingly expensive motor home trip around parts of the United States. For starters, the Phoenix, Ariz., couple are saving on hotel costs.
-
Cunningham Park vandalism estimated at $4,000
Vandals caused an estimated $4,000 worth of damage in Cunningham Park, draining the pool in the aquatic center of about 200,000 gallons of water and throwing some large landscaping rocks into the reflecting pond.
-
No charges to be filed in Joplin shooting case
The nonfatal shooting of a 25-year-old man at a Joplin residence on May 13 has been deemed justified by authorities. Jacob B. Boykin, 21, of Joplin, shot Justin S. Johnson, 25, of Carterville, once in the chest with a small-caliber handgun at 5260 E. Sunny Acres Lane.
-
Joplin team drove through storm to get to Moore
It was a long drive in the middle of a severe thunderstorm that had earlier produced a massive tornado in Moore, Okla. With the two-year anniversary of Joplin’s deadly twister approaching on Wednesday, a team of 14 Joplin emergency workers was ready to risk the trip in order to get help to a hurting Moore.
-
Mike Pound: DVD smells like pizza; how great is that?
Just when I think the rest of the world is passing us by, this great country does something that renews my faith in innovation. It does something that renews my faith in that can-do spirit that led Charles Lindbergh to fly nonstop across the Atlantic, thus leading to the invention of the airplane bathroom.
- More Local News Headlines
-
Families, friends invited to honor veterans with flags this weekend
