This Is Iowa: Iowan man’s wish puts 33 strangers through college

By Eric Hanson

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    DES MOINES, Iowa (KCCI) — Students all over Iowa know how much of a burden student debt can be.

It’s so overwhelming that many students don’t go to college.

That was going to be the case for Kira Conrad until a carpenter from Des Moines she never met changed everything. That was Dale Schroeder, who grew up poor, never went to college and never married.

When Schroeder died in 2005, he left behind instructions to send small-town Iowa kids, like Conrad, to college.

KCCI first met Kira in 2019. Since then, she’s attempted to pay forward Schroeder’s generosity.

“Since I was 12 years old, I knew I wanted to be a mental health therapist,” she said.

Diplomas now hang on the wall of Kira’s office in West Des Moines. Eight years after she was convinced her dream would never come true, she’s living it, helping Iowans get through their darkest days.

And she still wonders: “How would Dale feel knowing that we are living this dream? … That we took what he gave and we’re running with it, and we’re trying to make as much change as possible.

“Yes, I am living his dream.”

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