With nearly 40 years of local government experience, Mike Scanlon has spent much of his career working to connect people in the Kansas City metro area via trail systems. Scanlon, who was the city administrator in Mission for nearly 10 years and a chief financial officer in Merriam for another seven, helped connect Johnson Countians with his work on the Streamway Park trail systems. He went on to connect communities in Colorado before coming back and continuing that work in Osawatomie, Kansas. He’s now an executive director for Kansas Trails Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to connecting trails across the state. Less than a year after retiring from local government, in March 2024, Scanlon was diagnosed with Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer. Scanlon is a lifetime non-smoker, and he is currently taking a cancer therapy drug called Tagrisso — though he knows his cancer will eventually mutate. Now, through a month-long journey to bike 700 miles of trails across Kansas, Scanlon is showcasing what he believes is a commonality between trails and cancer: Resilience.
Read more: Johnson County Post
