The bonds of sisterhood connected members of the ISU chapter of Gamma Phi Beta sorority with a chapter more than 500 miles away when a University of North Dakota student disappeared two weeks ago.

Dru Sjodin was last heard from Nov. 22 while walking to her car in the parking lot of the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks, N.D., where she worked. She is a member of the University of North Dakota’s Alpha Beta chapter of Gamma Phi Beta sorority.

Since her disappearance, one of Sjodin’s former sorority sisters has led an effort in Ames to make her face a familiar one in central Iowa.

Heather Brandell, freshman in communication studies, transferred to Iowa State after attending the University of North Dakota during her freshman year. She has been posting fliers and helping to make pink and white ribbons for her ISU sorority sisters to wear in Sjodin’s honor.

Elisabeth Malin, president of the ISU chapter of Gamma Phi Beta, said sorority members have also sent letters to the University of North Dakota chapter.

“There’s not a whole lot that we can do here besides just letting the chapter in North Dakota know that we are thinking about them and keeping them in our thoughts and prayers,” said Malin, senior in elementary education.

When a crisis arises, sorority sisterhood extends from within a house to chapters in other states and across the country, Malin said.

“Even though we are Gamma Phis here at Iowa State, it links us throughout the whole country,” she said. “Even though most of us didn’t know Dru at all, there’s something about it — my heart just breaks.”

Brandell said Sjodin had an “unbelievable smile” and a heart for people.

“She volunteered at three different places and had two jobs and went to school,” she said. “Just from that, you can tell what an awesome person she is.”

Brandell said she was visiting her former sorority in Grand Forks the weekend of Sjodin’s disappearance.

“I found out that Dru was missing from her best friend Saturday night (Nov. 22),” she said. “Things had started to kind of unfold, and we were kind of wondering what was going on with her.”

Brandell said she didn’t accept the possibility that Sjodin could actually be missing until the morning after her disappearance.

“It became more real on Sunday morning when we hadn’t heard from her, and she hadn’t come home and the news came out about the phone calls that were made,” she said. “Every emotion you can imagine went through me at that time. I was scared at first and upset and sad.”

Brandell joined the first public search effort for Sjodin Nov. 25.

“We got up at 7 a.m. to start searching. You pretty much kicked through the snow all day long just looking for anything,” she said. “It was kind of a scary day — you don’t know what you’re going to find.

“It’s scary to think about what I would do if I came across [one of Dru’s possessions]. Will I be OK, will I be calm? How am I going to feel if I find something like that?”

Volunteers were asked to search for anything that could be connected to Sjodin, especially her cell phone, which she was using to talk to her boyfriend in the shopping mall’s parking lot.

The number of volunteers assisting the search effort grew as Sjodin’s disappearance became a national story. Brandell said she believes more media coverage means a greater chance that the bubbly 22-year-old will be back in the halls of the Gamma Phi Beta house and back on the University of North Dakota campus again.

“The media have shown big pictures of Dru’s face, which is huge because the more people that see her face, the more they would maybe recognize her if they see her,” she said. “That’s more important than candlelight vigils we’re having and everything else. The most important thing is definitely finding her, it isn’t what we’re doing to help ourselves.”

Brandell had to leave the search effort and return to Iowa State after Thanksgiving break.

“For me, being here is really hard because I want to be there and I want to be doing things. It’s a helpless feeling,” she said. “All I can do here is hand out ribbons and hand out signs to get her face seen more and keep praying that she comes home.”

Brandell said she knows Sjodin is aware of the effort being made to find her and hopes that knowledge will make her hold on until help arrives.

“With so many people hoping and praying, we really do think she knows we’re looking for her,” Brandell said. “She knows how many people care about her and that we’re not just going to let her go missing and not do anything about it.”

“Dru’s family has been so optimistic, and so have the police. If the police can be that hopeful then I think we have every reason to be. I still believe that she’ll come home and she’ll be safe.”

— The Associated Press

contributed to this article.