Jeannie NewMoon, a member of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma and a graduate of Haskell Indian Nations University, was killed this weekend after being struck by a train in Kansas.

NewMoon lived on the streets but family said they were shocked by the death. Police said NewMoon may have been trying to remove a bicycle from the train tracks before being struck.

NewMoon was born a male but was known to family and friends as a woman. "She was always trying to prove she was a warrior, when we all knew that she was," close friend Angela Carmona told The Lawrence Journal World.

NewMoon's sisters came to Kansas from Arizona to prepare for her burial on the Gila River Reservation in Arizona. She will be laid to rest next to her mother.

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Family shocked by transient's death in train collision (The Lawrence Journal World 8/16)