Family of longtime tribal attorney helps fund melanoma research

Guests at her husband’s memorial service and wake were the first people to help Kate Lockhart realize that melanoma is more common than she knew.

“I was absolutely stunned at the number of people who came up to me and shared their story about a loved one who had died of metastatic melanoma,” said Lockhart, whose husband, Jackson King, a prominent attorney who helped the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe settle tribal land claims, died in 2016 months after a melanoma diagnosis.

“I just remember saying to myself, ‘We’ve got to do something,’” she said.

Lockhart raised the idea with some of King’s golfing friends.

“A few of them just kind of took it and ran with it,” she said.

Last June, King’s family and friends raised $60,000 at a charity golf tournament at the tribe’s Lake of Isles golf course in his name. This summer, some of that money will go toward free skin cancer screenings at the Smilow Cancer Hospital Care Center in Waterford and pay for the cancer center’s staff to hand out educational materials at local beaches and tanning salons.

Lockhart said she hopes the screening and public outreach will help people recognize how dangerous melanoma can be and learn how to prevent it.

“If skin cancer is found early, the result is just that it’s more likely to be (treatable),” she said. “(We’ll) hopefully save other people from going through this.”

Local dermatologists and Yale Medical School doctors will be in Waterford on Monday to screen people who signed up for the clinic for skin cancer and give out free educational materials.

The clinic’s 80 spots filled up in a matter of hours after it was announced, said Mary Ann Nash, the director of oncology services at the cancer center.

Nash said misperceptions about skin cancer — and a dearth of local clinical dermatologists — mean that not enough people get their skin checked for cancer on a regular basis.

“The big thing with skin cancers is most people think of them as very benign,” she said. “(They think) ‘I’ll go to my doctor ... they can remove it and it’s fine and dandy.’”

The money Lockhart raised with the golf tournament will pay for the nursing staff and for the use of the cancer center for the clinic on Monday evening. It also will help pay for the center’s staff to visit beaches and tanning salons every Saturday this summer and pass out flyers with information about preventing skin cancer, along with widebrimmed hats and sunscreen.

The regular use of tanning beds can increase the risk of developing melanoma by 75 percent, Nash said.

The rest of the money they raised last year will go to melanoma researchers at Yale New Haven Hospital who are developing immunotherapy treatments for the cancer. Lockhart said she hopes a second charity golf tournament this summer will raise more money for research and outreach next year.

The risk of developing melanoma exists for anyone who fails to protect themselves from the sun, Lockhart said.

“It can affect people of all ages,” she said. Since her husband’s death she said she has known three people — one in their 30s, one in their 40s and another in their 70s — diagnosed with melanoma. “Since doing this, I’ve heard so many people’s stories,” she said.