Congratulations Mr. Jones

Congratulations Mr. Jones Party On! The visiting room was beautiful today and though it was hot, lacking air conditioning, the room was full of excitement. At my direction the chairs had been coordinated by color. The graduates were seated in red chairs for academic diplomas and maroon chairs for vocational certificates. The inmate guests sat in green, to the graduates’ left facing the podium. These guests are current students, each struggling with their own studies, hoping that they will be seated in the center at the next graduation event in November. The graduates’ families sat in green chairs to the right. Inmates’ mothers and brothers, their wives, their girlfriends and their babies, all came to celebrate this achievement. Most of the family members that were invited actually came today. Inmates are often disappointed and have to celebrate by themselves. Each chair held a program neatly printed and folded, listing the names of the graduates. The keynote speaker was the executive director of a local non-profit organization that had been the beneficiary of a pizza fundraiser last month. His speech was very encouraging and real. Special music was performed by the chapel choir, followed by a solo performance and then the Native American drummers. An inmate introduced me to his mother. I congratulated her on her son’s successful completion of his HSED, and expressed that I was sorry he had come to prison to get it. But that is how it came to happen for this man and now he and the others are on their way to new opportunities. Most of the graduates had their photos taken today, a red letter day, and a day to be remembered. There were oatmeal cookies and lemonade and punch. Several inmates thanked me for the work I do, for the positive impact I had on their experience, for the encouragement I had offered as they studied and tested. 30 inmates were honored today for their accomplishments. Each was dressed in a blue robe and even though they wore their everyday green uniforms underneath, for just a few minutes today they were men, graduates, rather than inmates. And so it was today, a little out of the ordinary and not just another day on the hill.