By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Shantelle Dube never wanted to be known as a sick kid.

She refused to complain about the surgeries that sidelined her for months. She shunned any discussion of pain.

But this week, the Lewiston High School senior lost her five-year battle with bone cancer. She was 17.

“She was the toughest little lady I knew,” said Cindy Allen, the mother of one of Shantelle’s best friends.

She loved school because she could be with friends, take photography classes, live for a few hours as a regular teenager.

“Even when she was sick, when she was vomiting, she tried to tell me she could go to school,” said her mother, Donna Dube.

Shantelle was 12 years old, a seventh-grader and a cheerleader for a youth football team when she told her parents that her leg hurt. Doctors first thought she’d injured it while cheering. Three months later, an X-ray revealed cancer in her leg. Further tests showed spots on her lungs.

Shantelle went through 11 months of chemotherapy and major surgery to remove her shin bone and replace it with one from a donor. It was a year before she could walk on her own. For a while she returned to cheerleading

“She couldn’t do jumps. She couldn’t do the stunts,” her mother said. “She wanted to still do it and she did as much as she could.”

But the cancer continued to ravage her body and soon she had to stop. Shantelle divided her time between hospitals and home, surgery and school.

For years, she carefully kept her pain hidden from family and her wide circle of friends. Instead, she gossiped about school and boys. She helped manage her younger sister’s lacrosse team. She constantly carried a camera so she could catch her friends in goofy poses.

“She was always like, Get in the picture, get in the picture,'” said friend Macie Hildebran.

At Lewiston High School, she became known as a sweet, creative girl who seemed to be friends with everyone. She threw herself into sewing and photography classes, dreaming of life as an interior designer and photographer.

Shantelle stopped going to school this fall when she became too tired and had too much pain.

“Right up until the very end she was wanting to receive homework and do what she could,” said high school counselor Vicky Wiegman.

For the past few weeks, she spent time with friends and family at home. She died Wednesday.

The high school has made counselors available to students. Many of Shantelle’s friends are grieving together.

Shantelle’s last wishes were simple. She wanted to graduate from high school. She wanted to hand out her senior pictures to friends. She wanted people to wear bright colors at her funeral.

The school has issued her a meritorious diploma. Her mother will make sure her friends get her senior photos.

And at her funeral, no one will wear black.

“She didn’t want people mourning her death,” said friend Zandrea Allen. “She wanted people to be happy she lived.”

Shantelle is survived by her mother; her father, Scott Daniels; her brother, Justin Dube; and her sister, Amie Daniels, all of Lewiston. She is also survived by grandparents and several aunts, uncles and cousins.

The funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Fortin Group Funeral Home in Auburn.

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