Brighter futures ahead: Mt. Pleasant Correction Facility inmates celebrate accomplishments with commencement ceremony

MT. PLEASANT - Education is the way to a better future.

Ten inmates at the Mt. Pleasant Correctional Facility echoed that sentiment again and again in their graduation speeches during a ceremony held on Thursday, Nov. 21.

The facility hosted a commencement to recognize various inmates who obtained their High School Equivalency Diploma (HSED) as well as those who had completed vocational training through Southeastern Community College. Ten of 29 graduates were present at the ceremony and each gave speeches following opening comments from deputy Warden Marcy Stroud and lead instructor Jolene Cox.

'This is a really important event for us … I wanted to express how proud we are of these gentlemen. They have worked really hard in one capacity or another. It's not simple going through our classes and we are so glad they have an opportunity to do it here … to help their future endeavors. Not everybody takes advantage of this opportunity while they're incarcerated to better themselves and to prepare themselves for a better future,” Stroud said in her address.

Following Stroud, Cox explained to audience members, which included staff from the correctional facility, various teaching instructors and tutors from the education program and family and friends of inmates, the many exams and hoops the graduates had to get through in order to receive their HSED. Cox noted that students were required to take a total of 15 exams across five different subjects and obtain a passing score of 45.

'The average total score for this class of 2019 was 72. And the highest individual score for this class was 89,” Cox remarked.

Kerry Murray, the education coordinator at the facility noted that it's important for the program to be offered to inmates because the facility wants the men to leave 'in better shape than they were when they got here.”

'We want them to be successful for themselves and for the people that depend on them. Also, they're going to be our neighbors so we want them to be good neighbors and citizens.”

'It's an honor to be able to play a part in that journey that they have,” Murray added, speaking on what it means to him to see his students succeed.

'It's powerful to know that there's one less person that would have been a victim outside that now is not going to be because someone that I helped here will not have to resort to that behavior. They've got new skills. And also if you're incarcerated, it's almost a guarantee that your children will be incarcerated, so it makes me happy to know that one less child that will be here someday as well,” Murray concluded.

Each graduate was given an opportunity to give a short speech. One by one, they approached the podium, thanking their instructors and family members for their support.

In his short address, 27-year-old inmate Damien Pack thanked the staff from SCC 'for coming and working with [the inmates].”

'Without them, a lot of us would not be here doing what we're doing today,” Pack added.

Pack also thanked his tutors saying, 'I want to send my appreciation to my tutors who never gave up even when things got real rough.”

'It's a new step that I've been waiting a long time for … it just opens a lot of doors for me,” Pack said after the ceremony concluded.

'I thought coming [to the correctional facility] was going to be my last step and I wouldn't be able to succeed after that but it was all different and it was a big turnaround,” Pack continued.

Following release from the correctional facility, Pack hopes to go into culinary arts.

'I've always had a love for cooking. I grew up in a southern Italian family so cooking is big,” he added.

Pack's fiance, Nicole Gutierrez, who attended the ceremony, said it made her 'very proud” to have been able to see him graduate.

'It's the first step of completing something and once you get that spirit of completion on your life, it's much easier to continue on,” Gutierrez explained.