BENNINGTON ? The tornado that blasted Ottawa County State Fishing Lake on Saturday night took everything Ashley McArthur had gathered for her wedding later this year.

The wedding dress, bridesmaid dresses, invitations, centerpieces, silk flower bouquets, her fiancee’s wedding ring – all of it gone in the seconds it took for the twister to demolish the doublewide mobile home McArthur shared with her fiance, Matt Benson.

Fortunately, McArthur, a 22-year-old college student, and Benson were both elsewhere when the tornado touched down north of Bennington, in north-central Kansas. Three dozen homes were damaged or destroyed, and a 54-year-old woman who was staying in a travel trailer at a home construction site was killed.

McArthur was tearfully picking through the rubble Sunday morning when a stranger walked up and handed her a small box.

There it was: Benson’s ring.

“Not a speck of dirt on it, nothing. The ring was sitting where it was supposed to be, and it was completely white,” McArthur said.

Benson and McArthur have been engaged for about 18 months and plan to go ahead with the wedding Oct. 20.

“We’ll have to cut some corners,” McArthur said. “But I think it’s kind of important to us to get all our family together, probably sooner than later.”