A Dallas woman who beat a rare and aggressive cancer is being celebrated in a special way. The Dallas Stars Foundation recently honored her at a home game not just for her strength, but for the artwork that helped her heal.  

For Dallas attorney Gracen Moreno, last Friday’s Stars game was about more than hockey.

“The entire arena… it seemed like everyone was either holding a shirt or talking about the shirt,” she said. 

A shirt she designed carries a powerful message, “Finish the Fight.”  

Last year, at just 29-years-old, Gracen was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer. At the time, she was preparing for a jury trial and planning a wedding two months away. The plans were suddenly moved up to just one week after her diagnosis.

“You kind of have your whole life ahead of you and then it turns out upside down,” she said. 

Her first symptom was a lingering cough. Then an X-ray revealed a nine-centimeter mass in her chest and a CT scan followed. 

“My doctor called me and said don’t panic but I need you to go to the emergency room to start getting the process in place to get out whatever is in your chest biopsied,” she said. 

Soon after came the news she feared most. 

“When I heard or I found out that I had cancer, it’s like your worst nightmare ever coming true,” she said. 

“Alk-Negative Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma is one of the rarest types of what we call non-Hodgkins lymphoma and it’s particularly aggressive unless treated appropriately,” Jana Reynolds, MD, a Texas Oncology physician on the medical staff at Baylor Scott & White Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center said. 

Doctors told Gracen the prognosis wasn’t good, only about a 30% chance of surviving five years. 

“What happens when the worst possible thing that you think at the time is the worst possible thing happens to you?” she said.  “Well, you can either give up, which is not an option, or you can decide to fight.” 

Fight she did. Through several rounds of grueling chemotherapy and, ultimately, a bone marrow transplant at Baylor Scott & White’s Sammons Cancer Center.

“On one of my lowest days of hospitalization my husband looked at me and said do you want to go paint something?” she said. “How do we make this better? I couldn’t see friends or family.”

Inside the hospital’s Arts in Medicine studio, Gracen began painting, using creativity to cope with the long days of treatment. 

While there, her art therapist learned she was a Dallas Stars season ticket holder and when an opportunity came up, she knew exactly who to recommend. 

“She came later to my hospital room and said you’ll never believe this, but I got an email from the Stars earlier today asking if I knew any cancer patients that also participated in the art program and I think you would be perfect for it,” she said. 

At last Friday’s home game, the Dallas Stars Foundation honored Gracen, celebrating her remission and her resilience.

The team asked her to design custom artwork for a special T-shirt given to the first 500 fans and even players. 

“Everyone was really invested in the mission,” Gracen said. “It was really cool to see fans, players, coaches, all either wearing the shirt or just celebrating the fight against cancer itself.” 

Her team of doctors say the recognition was well deserved. 

  “I’m so proud of her for accepting the challenge and honestly bringing more attention to the serious things that we face,” Dr. Reynolds said.  

“It was a really special night,” Gracen said. 

It’s been a minute since someone called me “fake news.” Forgot how hilarious it sounds when it’s said seriously.

It happened early Tuesday afternoon at the Cole Manor Motel on Harry Hines Boulevard, where I’d gone to check out a joint that city attorneys allege has long been “a storefront for prostitution, drug use, and the sale and manufacturing of illicit drugs.” A Dallas police car was pulling out as I was turning in.

Just inside the shabby, square-shaped motor court whose swimming pool was long ago filled in, a half-masked security guard who appeared to be wearing a bulletproof vest helped a woman roll a new mattress into a dark room. He directed me to the front office, where a young woman stood behind thick, murky glass that made her look out of focus.

I asked who the owner was. She said she didn’t know. There were notes taped to the glass: “NO ID, No Room.” “Toilet Tissue Roll $1.00.”

The security guard went to get another woman, who acted like she was in charge. I asked about the city’s lawsuit, filed in April, which calls Cole Manor an “infamous crime hub.” I mentioned the court order signed last month that requires the motel’s operator to pay the city nearly $1 million in civil penalties and demands the motel be secured by Dec. 21 with, among dozens of other things, a vehicle access gate and a license plate reader.

“Fake news,” the woman snapped before locking herself behind the bulletproof glass. I offered to go to the car to get legal docs.

“I don’t want to disclose any information about that,” she said. At which point, the guard suggested that maybe this interview was over.

I hadn’t visited the motel since Christmas Eve 2018, when it made Preservation Dallas’ list of this city’s most-endangered historic buildings — given its age (it opened in 1946 as El Sombrero Motor Courts), architect (the revered Charles Dilbeck) and proximity to an ever-expanding Medical District devouring surrounding properties. Dilbeck, responsible for hundreds of whimsical residences from Oak Cliff to Preston Hollow, revolutionized the look, feel and function of the post-war motor lodge, best evidenced by his most beloved local lodge, the Belmont Hotel.

There’s much to say about Cole Manor’s significance and past, which includes countless crimes dating back to a night in January 1950, when both local newspapers reported that three men stuck a gun in the face of the auto court’s manager and stole $300. That was the first time, but far from the last, the motel made news.

But first we must reckon with its present — and its future — as Cole Manor heads to trial next month. Because property owner Manor Hospitality Corp.’s attorney says this isn’t his client’s fault or problem. The motel’s longtime owner instead blames its rap sheet on the operator who’s allegedly been booted from the motel and is nowhere to be found, even in court.

The city doesn’t see it that way, citing sections of the Texas Local Government Code that place responsibility at the feet of the property owner. Jill Haning, the city’s deputy chief of the litigation division, said via email that when this case hits a courtroom next month, “The city will ask the court to either appoint a receiver to take possession and control of the property to abate the violations and ongoing criminal activity or issue an order requiring the property owner to do so.”

In court documents, city attorneys say they’ve been working with the motel’s owner since 2002 to identify and eradicate the crime and code violations — only to have the issues re-emerge time and again. That includes 28 police calls in the last three years, including numerous aggravated assaults, drug manufacturing and, police say, the shooting death of a 69-year-old woman.

“As the saying goes,” says the complaint, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

The lawsuit also says federal and local law enforcement in February “took down a seven-person drug trafficking operation that operated out of the Cole Manor Motel for at least a year.” Per the suit, a search warrant resulted in five arrests and the recovery of six guns, fentanyl, crack and $20,000. The city finally sued Manor Hospitality Corp. and its operator, Bhumiya3 LLC, in April.

Bhumiya3 appears to be one person, Irving resident Nilam Patel, whom I couldn’t reach. He also never responded to the lawsuit and didn’t appear in court last month, resulting in a judge slapping him with a pile of code violations totaling $960,256.

Manor Hospitality Corp.’s president is Mike Patel, whose number is the same as Cole Manor’s and doesn’t work anyway, in case you were considering making reservations. Patel has owned the Cole Manor for more than 25 years.

I asked Lance “Luke” Beshara, Manor Hospitality’s Fort Worth-based attorney, how long Bhumiya3 was running the motel on his client’s behalf. He said he didn’t know, but noted that its lease was terminated after the city filed its suit. When I asked who was running the place now, he said he didn’t know.

“Probably a new tenant,” he said. “I am sure my client is trying to find someone who wants to keep it open. They’re not going to let the property sit vacant. That would be a terrible idea, A vacant motel? You really think it’s going to stay vacant? People would break in.”

Beshara said his client met with Dallas’ attorneys earlier this year, at which point, he said, Manor Hospitality first became aware of the city’s numerous allegations.

“So,” I said, “you’re telling me your client was not aware of what was going on at the motel?”

Beshara said that was “not a fair question.” I asked why.

“No, my client was not aware of any of these incidents,” he said. “Later on the city did send a letter referencing its nuisance ordinance and provided a list of certain alleged offenses. They said we have these reports. We got a letter with unsubstantiated offenses that supposedly occurred and were somehow related to my client’s property.”

He said that after a meeting with city attorneys, Patel hired a security guard and installed a gate, though where, I have no idea. And I drive by the Cole Manor at least once a day every day.

But there’s no need to try this here. A temporary injunction hearing set for Jan. 8, to be followed by a trial 18 days later, will help decide the future of the Cole Manor.

As for its past, I called architect Willis Winters, Dallas’ former parks department director, to confirm the motel is a Dilbeck. “Absolutely,” he said. Winters would know, as author of a forthcoming Texas A&M University biography of the architect.

“You can tell by the architectural vocabulary of the building, how the façade was very complex, visually interesting,” Winters said of the motel. “It engages your eye as you’re trying to understand why it’s doing what it’s doing. The octagonal windows, the roof overhangs, the cupolas along the roof, the vents. All these items he added for visual texture and visual character to draw interest to the building and make people driving by in 1946 want to turn in there and check in for the night.”

Winters said he used to drive past the Cole Manor every day, but turned in for the first time earlier this year. He stayed only as long as it took him to turn around and leave.