Reader's Digest Australia Feb/Mar 2026

STEVE VAN YSSELDYK (2) The next day, he drove to the landfill and asked if he could sift through the 18 tons of compost to look for his wife’s rings, as if this were a request made every day. “My brain was trying to figure out a way to tell him to go buy his wife new rings,” landfill contractor Denny Web- ster told CTV News in Canada. But Webster is a nice guy and not only gave him the thumbs-up, but also used an excavator to create smaller piles, mak- ing it easier for Steve to rummage through the rot and slime. Slowly, Steve began to recognize his garbage. “My popcorn bag! My sau- sages!” he shouted out excitedly, as if running into old friends. Miraculously, he found the engagement ring, and an hour later, the wedding ring—both covered in slippery popcorn butter. Steve immediately called Jeannine, who sobbed for joy. Not just because he’d found the rings. But, says Jeannine, grinning, “because I know howmuch he loves me, that he’s willing to go through a rotten, stinky compost pile.” Steve Van Ysseldyk wasn’t the only one digging around for a diamond. Once Micherre Fox and her boyfriend, Trevor Ballou, decided to get hitched, Fox, who had just finished a master’s program in management at Fordham University in New York City, packed her tent, cot and tools and decamped to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkan- sas. Since 1972, some 35,000 diamonds have been discovered at the park, and Fox was determined to find diamond 35,001 for her wedding ring. It was slow going, and tough physical work. After three weeks of digging and poking, Fox was ready to pack it in. Then a shiny object in the dirt, the size of a human tooth, caught her eye. She doubted it was the real deal, but she picked it up, dusted it off and had it appraised at the park’s office. Jackpot! It was a white diamond, weighing in at 2.3 carats, they told her. One gemolo- gist put its worth at up to $50,000. Going to all the trouble of finding this gem was a no-brainer, Fox told CBS News. It allowed her to prove a point to her fiance. “This was a perfect opportunity for me to make a commitment about who I want to be in a rela- tionship.” The popcorn-loving couple 56 February/March 2026 T he old saw about the evil step- parent certainly didn’t apply to Roger McElroy. He made a point of being a positive presence in the life of his stepdaughter, Brooke Johnson. At times when life threw screwballs at Johnson, McElroy was there to pick her up. During one trying time, he left her a voicemail that said, “Everything’s gonna be fine. We’ll get through it.” In 2024, McElroy suffered a fall that left him a quadriplegic. Three and a half weeks later, he died of those injuries. But before that, while keeping vigil by his bedside, Johnson shared with McElroy her dream of becoming the first woman to skateboard across the country. He wanted to be part of it, and they planned that she would push him in his wheelchair across the finish line. She wasn’t sure she could pull it off, but McElroy had faith in her. “I was like, ‘Roger, it’s a big country.’ And he was like, ‘Well, you can do it,’” Johnson told Good Morning America . After McElroy’s death, Johnson, then 29, chose to honor him by becoming the first woman to skateboard across the country. Along the way, she would raise money for Wings for Life, a non- profit that supports research into spinal cord injuries. Accompanied by an RV and a video crew, and wearing a locket around her neck that held McElroy’s ashes, she began her journey last April at Califor- nia’s Santa Monica beach. Destination: Virginia Beach, 3,266 miles away. Averaging 30 to 50 miles a day, John- son’s ride across America took her up and downmountains, past wheat fields and through cities, in rain and blister- ing heat. Through it all, Roger McElroy was riding with her: Everything’s gonna be fine. We’ll get through it. On Aug. 15, after 119 days, Johnson arrived at the Atlantic Ocean. No one was more surprised than Johnson that she had completed what she’d started, while raising $50,000 for Wings for Life. She told ABC News, “Roger left me purpose, and for that I thank him every day.” HonorsHer Stepfather Brooke Johnson, somewhere in America A S K A T E B O A R D E R ALEX OROPEL, COURTESY OF BROOKE JOHNSON readersdigest.com.au 57 Cover Story reader ’ s digest