“My goal is to create a good environment. I know people sometimes come here as an escape when things are tough at home. It’s a safe place.”

Jerry Campbell once got into a debate with his fifth-grade teacher over Civil War trivia. The question was whether Mound City had indeed been one of the famous ironclad Civil War gunships. When his teacher didn’t recognize the ship’s name and told him it was incorrect, he shouted, “You’re wrong!” in front of the entire class. Jerry, age eleven, was already a studied expert on the subject.

Gary has been a soldier, a pastor, a father, a husband, and a mentor. He’s done more than we can cover in this story: run thousands of miles, made hundreds of art pieces, and played countless games of Candy Land with kids who, more than anything, need a caring adult to make time for them.

Hannah not only embraces the uniqueness of herself, but in others, too. She befriends others who are “different” and don’t have many friends. From her struggle with mental health, she relates to how they feel estranged from the world. She has a kind and sympathetic ear for everyone’s story.

You can feel your heart pounding in your chest as you think about going inside. You have to go inside. You have to move. First, you have to look up, at this entirely new room, these entirely new people. This is karate. You are Graeme Anderson, 11 years old, and you have to move.

“I love the relationships with photography. I love meeting people. I love when they look at the photo and see themselves as beautiful.”

“I’ve heard it said that storm chasing is 99 percent boredom and 1 percent sheer terror.”

“I want people to love. Love, understanding is very important. I always think the troubles we have in life are because we don’t know each other. If you meet someone and have a good, friendly relationship with that person, it changes your life. Because you know them. You don’t just know about them. You know them.”

“We saw each other every Saturday morning,” Eventually, they were teammates; during their sophomore year of high school, they started dating. “And then we got married in that bowling center on lanes eight and nine,”

“Saving five cows out of the cow industry of Iowa is nothing. It’s not even close to a drop in the bucket, but the impact that these five cows can make is huge. To have a place that people can come out and see the animals, and meet the animals, and pet them, and see how they interact, that’s how we plant the seeds of helping them get to where they can be more mindful of the choices they’re making.”

We call her “Susan the Hatmaker” with all the affection the title can carry. This woman was willing to send her address to a stranger (who texts with improper grammar, no less), to make him a hat, to respond with an open heart. Who is she?