Days after a fire brought down a third of Iola's downtown, Kori Printz, her mom, dad and a good friend sifted through 6 feet of rubble and debris. She'd lost everything she owned after moving into her first apartment.
Printz, then 21, remembers how 20 years ago she and her two roommates were in their apartment when they spotted the smoke half a block away. They joked someone left their curling iron on.
Then the landlord came by and told them to get out.
She left with what she was wearing and her car keys. She took nothing else.
Of all the things she lost the night of the Iola Father's Day Fire of 1999, the only item she cared about when she was allowed to go through the charred remains of her apartment building was her great-grandmother's wedding ring. So, they dug. Their hands went into the ash and dirt and they eventually found a gem.
"It was in my hand. It was like my grandma was there with us wanting us to find it," Printz said. "It was so weird. How do you find a wedding ring in all that rubble? It happened and after that we were done."
Nothing else mattered. Everything else could be replaced.