ASHLAND, Kan. | Jackie Stiles arrived here in western Kansas in bad weather aboard a six-seat airplane landing on a single-strip runway.</p><p>&ldquo;Glad I wasn&rsquo;t the pilot,&rdquo; she said, laughing.</p><p>Stiles, the former Missouri State basketball star and all-time leading scorer in NCAA women&rsquo;s hoops history, came for a good cause. It&rsquo;s one that she truly understands as a small-town Kansan.</p><p>The cause is rural health care, specifically preventative medicine for women. The event was the WEPAC Hoops for Hope benefit basketball game. The exhibition contest, involving area high school girls players and former college women&rsquo;s standouts from Kansas State, Kansas, Missouri State, Nebraska, Wichita State and Iowa, raised money to provide resources and education for local women.</p><p>&ldquo;What we&rsquo;ve found is that women in rural areas tend to look after every one else in their family, but short-change their own health care,&rdquo; said Benjamin Anderson, CEO of Ashland Health Center.</p><p>So the idea arose to hold a benefit basketball game as a joint production of his facility and Comanche County Hospital. The two centers service the communities of Wilmore, Englewood, Protection, Ashland and Coldwater, hence the acronym WEPAC.</p><p>The game was held at Ashland High School, from which KU distance runner and Olympian Wes Santee graduated.</p><p> In this part of the Sunflower State, about an hour southeast of Dodge City, there is no nearby digital mammogram machine. That makes it more difficult and costly for women to get that vital checkup. But thanks to money raised through tickets and sponsorships, a mobile mammogram machine will be brought in once a month, starting in November, to Ashland and Coldwater.</p><p> Vouchers will be provided to help pay for that and other preventative services for women who need a supplement for their insurance or are uninsured. Some of the proceeds of the event also will go to the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund.</p><p>A big key for this event&rsquo;s success was getting Stiles on board. She did not play but coached the Pink Team, along with WNBA legend Cynthia Cooper, against the White Team, coached by current WNBA players Ruth Riley and Kristi Leeper-Meis, who played for Fort Hays State&rsquo;s NCAA Division II championship team in 1991.</p><p>Stiles got several of the participants to come, including Riley, whose Notre Dame team won the 2001 NCAA title the same season Stiles&rsquo; Missouri State squad also made the Final Four.</p><p>Multiple injuries cut short Stiles&rsquo; WNBA career in 2002, and she now really doesn&rsquo;t play basketball because of the toll it takes on her body. However, she still runs basketball camps and does personal training through her own business, J. Stiles Total Training.</p><p>&ldquo;This event hit home for me, because it&rsquo;s for small towns and I feel right at home,&rdquo; said Stiles, who is from Claflin, Kan. &ldquo;I love to run my camps in small towns because they appreciate it so much. This is such a wonderful cause. I know everybody has been affected by cancer in some way.&rdquo;</p><p>Friday&rsquo;s game also gave some former rivals a chance to play together. Competitors for the White team included Kansas State&rsquo;s Marlies Gipson and Kansas&rsquo; Ivana Catic, who both finished their college careers last season.</p><p>Catic smiled at the news Friday that the Jayhawks had been picked No. 20 in the preseason Associated Press poll, the first time KU&rsquo;s women have been in the rankings since 2000.</p><p>&ldquo;I have a lot of confidence that they will handle themselves well and that it won&rsquo;t get in their heads,&rdquo; said Catic, who&rsquo;s now working on her master&rsquo;s degree in business. &ldquo;I definitely feel a lot of pride for them.&rdquo;