by Destry Holzschuh
There’s no question that law school is tough, but Kaden Peebles has some experience in overcoming tough circumstances. As a teenager in southwest Arkansas, she was living a regular life as a high school cheerleader in a small town before she was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma her junior year. Peebles would spend the rest of that year and most of her senior year doing chemotherapy and radiation treatment before reaching remission and graduating high school in good health.
Less than two months into college, Peebles was diagnosed with cancer again—this time leukemia caused by her previous cancer treatments. She restarted chemotherapy and underwent a bone marrow transplant before reaching remission. A year later, the leukemia relapsed, and she did it all over again. After all of that, Peebles was able to graduate from the University of Central Arkansas and started thinking about law school.
For her, going through cancer treatments and frequently being the youngest person in rooms full of doctors helped her learn to advocate for herself and taught her that she wanted to use those skills to advocate for others. That will to be a voice for those who needed it led her to OCU’s School of Law. “I love it here,” she explained. “I didn’t have a traditional college experience, so I’ve really enjoyed getting to have this law school experience.”
