By HOLLY WAGNER

Herald-Whig Staff Writer

CANTON, Mo. -- In the middle of her junior year, Jillian Bentley found out she had a rare form of cancer. She spent the next six months shuttling in and out of Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Throughout that rough time, students, faculty and staff at Culver-Stockton College made sure Bentley knew she was in their thoughts.

"I would not want to have been at any other place going through what I went through," Bentley said. "They were so supportive and so helpful. I could not have asked for anything better."

After aggressive treatment, Bentley's cancer went into remission and she returned to school the next fall. Despite still feeling sick and weak at first, she finished her senior year with her class and with honors.

On Saturday, Bentley received her baccalaureate degree in business administration along with about 190 other graduates.

"I don't know how I did it," she said. "I don't ask questions anymore. I just go with it."

Bentley is one of three students who completed 22 hours of honors-level course work and prepared a project in her field. It combined her interests in theater and business by creating a hypothetical proposal to persuade a business to back a community theater's summer season.

And she's one of four students graduating with a 4.0 grade point average for the semester.

"We're so proud of her ... to be able to bounce back," said Dell Ann Janney, chairman of the business division. Janney nominated Bentley for the Mary Elizabeth Powell Achievement Award that she'll receive as a graduate who went through a substantiantial hardship.

"It's for courage, dedication, persistence, commitment -- all words that are fitting to describe Jillian," Janney said.

Bentley has a ribbon, pink with brown polka dots, to remind her of her C-SC friends' love and concern. Her sorority sisters created the ribbon using her favorite colors and design and sold them, with all the proceeds going to help with her medical expenses.

"That was one of the biggest things for me," Bentley said. Friends, faculty and administrators all bought one and wore them around campus. Even though she wasn't able to witness it, "to know about it really helped," Bentley said.

When Bentley joined the Chi Omega social sorority, she did it because it filled a need for family far away from her parents and three siblings in Homewood, Ill. She held executive positions and served on the Panhellenic Council. It gave her leadership experience and got her involved in the community by fundraising for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Bentley also got regular e-mails and phone calls from the dean of students and college President William Fox, checking on her health and spirits.

Also maintaining regular contact was the Arthur J. Gallagher firm in Itasca, Ill. The international insurance brokerage and risk management firm places 40 interns a semester, and at the end of the internships it selects a few for permanent positions. Bentley was to intern at Arthur J. Gallagher last summer, but when she told the company she was too sick, it promised to hold her position in its corporate insurance brokering branch until she was well enough to take it.

She'll start there in June and work through August, and she hopes she'll be one of the interns who stays.

"That was the most amazing thing they could have done," Bentley said. "It made me realize what an amazing company they will be to work for."

Bentley doesn't know why she contracted cancer or how her doctors have apparently cured it. But she does know that the loving concern of friends from Culver-Stockton gave her the hope and strength to fight her illness.

"If I had been on any other campus, I would not have received the same support and attention that I got here at Culver," she said. "I've been truly blessed."

-- hwagner@whig.com/221-3374