Lane Goodwin, Kentucky Teen With 366K Facebook Fans, Dies Of Cancer

Lane Goodwin, a 13-year-old Kentucky boy who drew more than 300,000 fans to his Facebook page following a battle with cancer, died of the disease Wednesday night after nearly three years of illness.

Lane Goodwin became a face of childhood cancer awareness as social media allowed hundreds of thousands of well-wishers to send their thoughts and prayers to the Kentucky boy as he struggled to overcome cancer. Goodwin passed at just before 8 pm last night, and his family released a statement confirming Goodwin had died and thanking everyone who followed his battle for their support and involvement:

“We would like to thank the community for the incredible display of human kindness over the past two and a half years. Our sweet Lane had a beautiful smile. He was full of energy and loved sharks, fishing, soccer, adventure and his brother, Landen. Lane had an incredible Christian faith, and we are able to find peace in the extraordinary life he lived in his short few years.”

The statement after Lane Goodwin’s passing continued:

“We have been amazed and touched by the worldwide thumbs up movement in honor of Lane. Lane believed that the awareness this movement brought for childhood cancers would lead to a cure. Lane’s legacy will live on as we move forward with the commitment we made to him to find a cure.”

After Lane Goodwin died, pages began cropping up across Facebook to honor the cancer-stricken boy, but his family has said the pages aren’t approved to use their son’s name and that they’d hoped to keep activity on his own page in order to continue to raise awareness:

“Team Lane-This is the ONLY & will be the ONLY approved page for Lane! In the near future the Foundation Page will be released & it will be posted here. Please respect our wishes & do not start pages with our sons name. We will continue to post all updates on this page. Thank you all for your prayers & support during this very difficult time.”

Lane Goodwin’s official Facebook page can be found here, and you can send condolences to the family through the site.