The entire population of Iola could fit into a few square blocks of any section in Detroit.
The view outside a campus dorm room on the north edge of the small southeast Kansas town reveals rural pasture, not inner-city streets.
During the summer of 1990, however, the setting was even more tranquil.
Students attending Allen Community College — hardly overcrowded any day of the year — were on summer break.
Apples Wadel (now Jones) arrived with no fanfare — much different than what her son, Josh Jackson, would receive when the 6-foot-8 guard landed in Kansas about a quarter-century later as the nation’s top basketball recruit.