A Kalispell philanthropist who made a difference in the lives of thousands of women by giving them access to mammograms has died.

Jane Winkley, 77, was perhaps best known locally for her generous gift of $1 million to the Kalispell Regional Healthcare Foundation for mobile digital mammography and $600,000 for the ALERT air rescue program.

The Winkley Women’s Center mobile coach, made possible by Winkley’s financial contribution, launched in March 2008 and travels to communities throughout Western Montana and along the Hi-Line to provide crucial health-care services to underinsured women and those with no insurance.

Since its inception, the mobile coach has provided 16,200 examinations, including mammograms and breast ultrasounds on 7,000 patients, traveling 170,000 miles. Those exams have detected 91 cases of breast cancer.

“I think the valley has lost someone who gave so much, not only to the hospital but also to so many organizations,” said Allison Meilicke, director of the Kalispell Regional Healthcare Foundation ambassador program. “She was so giving and so generous.”

Dr. Melissa Hulvat, a breast surgical oncologist and medical director of the Bass Breast Center, said she has seen Winkley’s legacy firsthand as she works with women diagnosed by mammograms they received through the mobile center.

Winkley, who was a breast cancer survivor, was spurred to action when she learned about the poor quality analog mammograms from some rural hospitals that the Kalispell hospital received for reading months after the patients were screened.

“These women had no choice. They had no chance,” Winkley commented in a 2012 Inter Lake article.

Thanks to the Winkley coach, men and women who receive screenings get timely results. Digital mammograms and other images are sent by satellite technology to a radiologist in Kalispell for interpretation, then results are returned to the woman and her physician, sometimes in the same day.

Foundation President Tagen Vine said Winkley always reiterated that, “If it saves one life it was worth every penny.”

Winkley rode along with the mobile center a couple of times and enjoyed seeing her philanthropy in action, Vine said.

Hulvat recalled that Winkley “had an admirable sense of what was right in the world.

“What the Winkley coach does is amazing,” Hulvat said. “Who Jane Winkley was, was even more amazing. She was her own woman, and when she got a bee in her bonnet to do something she’d see it through.

 “She was outspoken and delightful and I appreciated her lack of filter. It was so very typical of who she was,” Hulvat said.

Eleven years ago, Winkley and her husband, Jerry, were instrumental in giving $100,000 to ALERT to seed an endowment fund for the medical helicopter. Later Winkley gave ALERT another $500,000.

Winkley also financially supported the Wounded Warriors Project and local veterans organizations. She also supported Stillwater Christian School and many other local organizations and started a permanent endowment fund at Montana State University.

Her generosity went well beyond her donations of money. Winkley had an active volunteer leadership role in the local Girl Scouts program for years.

She worked with United Way, played with the bell choir at Bethlehem Lutheran Church and just recently had been helping out with the Sunday school program. When she was no longer able to get to church, the children walked a half block to her house for class.

Winkley told the Inter Lake in 2007 that the volunteer work she and her husband performed with the Rollins Fire Department influenced their decision before Jerry’s death in 2006 to help make sure the community never loses the helicopter ambulance service.

“The legacy she’s left with our hospital is just incredible,” Vine said. “It’s a remarkable investment in her community. Her life has been all about giving back to community.”

Winkley’s husband was a carburetor engineer who earned numerous patents for his innovative designs. The Winkleys moved to Rollins, where Jerry grew up, in 1980. After he died of a heart attack, she reviewed her finances and realized she was in a position to donate to the community.

Winkley’s financial portfolio contained a stock that the couple had purchased for 67 cents a share decades ago. It was selling for $60 a share several years ago. She had a choice of losing a large portion to taxes or donating it to a nonprofit corporation to give the community a boost.

Winkley followed her philanthropic heart.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.