The Fire in Her Heart: OSU student and newlywed receives support from the Cowboy family following wildfires
Friday, September 19, 2025
Media Contact: Mack Burke | Associate Director of Media Relations | 405-744-5540 | editor@okstate.edu
Eight weeks remained before Jadrian Cook would walk across the graduation stage to receive a hard-earned bachelor’s degree. In four months, she would walk down the aisle to marry the love of her life — both steps she’d dreamed of taking since childhood.
While the Oklahoma State University nutritional sciences senior did eventually take those momentous steps, the path there became nearly impossible one spring afternoon.
On March 14, 2025, Cook clocked in for work at Cowboy Dining around 6 a.m. like she does every day and headed home at 1 p.m. to work on wedding plans.
However, on that particular Friday, Cook stopped at Walmart for groceries — a deviation that let her spot a wildfire and smoke 2-3 miles from home.
“If I hadn’t stopped at the store, I would not have seen the fires up that close,” Cook said.
Cook has lived in Oklahoma her entire life, specifically Stillwater, and she knew how quickly fires spread.
“It was all hands on deck. No one tells you growing up that in the case of wildfire,
these are the things that you’re going to need, so when you’re grabbing everything
inside, it’s like, what can we fit in a vehicle?”
Before packing a single item or loading one of her own pets, Cook called everyone she knew — giving them a chance to grab their animals and essentials.
“I saw them driving home and started making as many phone calls as I could. I called my mom and had her call all her students and coworkers, just making sure they could get back and get their pets, dogs, anything they could,” she said.
When Cook finally pulled into her driveway, she hopped out of her car and walked into the house to find her dad napping and her brother working on his computer, unaware of the nearby danger.
Together, they leapt to action, shoving her childhood home into bags.
“It was all hands on deck,” Cook said. “No one tells you growing up that in the case of wildfire, these are the things that you’re going to need, so when you’re grabbing everything inside, it’s like, what can we fit in a vehicle?”
They also loaded the family’s cat, six dogs, five ferrets and 14 chickens.
“I was not about to leave any of them, so we got all the animals loaded in the car, and then we started loading items,” Cook said. “I got my high school yearbooks, my younger brother got his stuff and went upstairs and grabbed my prom dresses and all that kind of stuff that I wasn’t quite thinking about, the memory type material.”
With as much of their lives as they could fit in the three family cars, the Cook family went to the safety of their second home — Gallagher-Iba Arena.
Due to news coverage, they knew they would see rubble where their home once stood when they arrived the next morning.
Still, the Cooks traveled back to their property and began sifting through ash for items that might have been spared. One item that didn’t survive was Cook’s wedding dress.
Disaster response teams, like the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross, activated to help those in need. Locally, the Cowboy Strong saddled up to donate and lend a hand to help their neighbors.
Approximately 96 homes were destroyed, and an additional 123 homes were impacted. The fire also caused damage to 74 campers at Lake Carl Blackwell, according to the Stillwater Fire Department.
“I’d seen something similar happen in this town before, whenever the car crash happened at the Homecoming parade all those years ago,” Cook said. “A lot of people came together to help the families that were affected by that, and so I know this town is capable of those kinds of things. This was just on a much bigger scale than it had ever happened before that it was insane to see.”
After the OSU Division of Student Affairs sent an email, Scott Alexander — director of student support — drew on established partnerships with University Health Services, the University Store, Housing and Residential Life, and University Counseling to assist Cook and other affected students.
“I think it’s important for people to know we are prepared and responsive when those needs arise, whether that’s on a larger scale or every day on a micro level,” Alexander said. “... We anticipate that students are going to face challenges while they’re here and we have processes, programs and staff who are ready and equipped to help in addressing those needs.”
With their basic needs met, Cook and her family, along with their dogs, moved into a hotel to begin starting over. Meanwhile, Alexander helped her replace physical textbooks, school supplies and even her graduation regalia, including an OSU-branded shirt she had purchased just a week earlier to wear under her cap and gown.
Still, he and his team continued to find additional ways to support her.
“I don’t think it was really on her radar,” Alexander said. “She and her family were in a temporary housing situation. But I remember saying, ‘You’re just weeks away from graduating. You’re heading into finals. Yes, your basic safety needs are met, but you’re still dealing with some complex challenges.’ So, I just asked, ‘Would it be helpful to have on-campus housing, a space that’s all your own, so you could have that peace of mind? Not that you’re trying to stop caring for your family, but so you can focus on what you need to focus on right now.’
“And she said, ‘If that’s possible. That would be great.’”
This made getting to work easier and gave her a quiet place to successfully finish her undergraduate degree.
OSU has a Cowboy Strong emergency fund that offers short-term financial assistance to OSU-Stillwater students facing unexpected hardships such as illness, accidents or housing issues that could disrupt their education.
In this instance, the funds from Cowboy Strong helped the Cook family purchase replacement household items like clothing, bedding and other essential items.
And while Cook was receiving support from OSU, members of the Stillwater community still wanted to step up and help.
Like any other bride, Cook’s emotional tipping point during this time was continuing to plan the dream wedding with her groom without her dream dress.
Alexander and his team saw how much losing the one thing she couldn’t easily replace impacted her.
So, they reached out to Formal Fantasy, a local business that hadn’t yet had a chance to get involved.
When he called, owner Stacia Smith immediately offered to donate a dress and take care of all the altering.
While one of Cook’s friends ultimately provided the gown, Smith still found a way to help arrange for the dress to be professionally dry-cleaned and altered.
As Cook walked across the graduation stage in May and down the aisle in July — wearing her dream dress, thanks to community generosity — she carried more than childhood dreams fulfilled.
When she looked through the veil at the crowd, Cook now knew that even when everything seems lost, the Cowboy family ensures you don’t face the rebuild alone.
Hope is fireproof.
Photos by: Mitchell Alcala, Jeremy Cook and Emily Golden
Story by: Sydney Trainor | STATE Magazine