Graduation for the first class to complete the Department's Correction Leadership and Development Program brought together the 22 graduates, their families, managers and three Correction secretaries who worked to establish it. The graduates received congratulations, diplomas and 16 hours of college credit from Mount Olive College for their hard work over the past nine months. The 22 correction managers earned their rewards by tackling an action project, mentoring with three different senior managers and meeting for class 22 times, often putting in 10- to 12- hour days.

At the ceremonies, Correction Secretary Theodis Beck awarded certificates, congratulated the graduates and welcomed the two former correction secretaries who worked to establish the program.

The idea for the program was first discussed by Franklin Freeman and Mack Jarvis in 1993 when Freeman was secretary and Jarvis deputy secretary. Speaking at the graduation ceremony, Freeman remembered discussions about the loss of experience with the retirement of a number of managers who had worked thirty years for the agency.

"As Mack talked about some of these people he had served with whose retirements we were going to, he would talk about how in the late 1960s, he came to Raleigh when Lee Bounds was director of prisons to a course that Mr. Bounds had started," Freeman said. "As he ticked off the names of the people who were in the class with him, they were the people whose retirements we were attending."

When Freeman left to become Gov. Hunt's Chief of Staff and Jarvis was named Secretary of Correction, Jarvis made the training program a priority. He encouraged senior managers, held important planning discussions with the leaders of the Institute of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and put Correction Staff Training managers to work preparing the program.

"We wanted training specific to North Carolina that would prepare our managers to make the best, ethical, business-based decisions about running our agency," Jarvis said. "We wanted a cross pollination of ideas and experiences from managers in the different divisions, and we wanted a chance for our senior managers to pass on their experiences through mentoring."

The work that began last September when the class first met has been reviewed by Mount Olive College. College Vice President Barbara Kornegay told the graduates the college will award them 16 hours of college credit for participation in the program. The college and department are working to formalize an agreement that will help institutionalize the management training program.

Members of the first graduating class include Richard Neely, Charlotte Correctional Center; Helen Harriger, Western Youth Institution; James Lacewell, Guilford Correctional Center; Lynn Summers, Hoke Correctional Institution; Mary Lu Rogers, DOP Administration – Classification; David Mitchell, DOP private prison monitor; Margie Lawler, Morrison Youth Institution; J Haynes, Blanch Correctional Institution; Bobby Burleson, Anson Correctional Center; Cynthia Bostick, N.C. Correctional Institution for Women; Joyce Kornegay, Umstead Correctional Center; George Solomon, DOP Administration – Security; Wayne Ingram, Hyde Correctional Center; Wayne Talbot, Dan River Prison Work Farm; John Green, DCC - Buncombe JDM; Randy Eggen, DCC - Hendersonville JDM; Cornell McGill, Judicial Division 1, Assistant Chief; Betty Beam, DCC - Winston-Salem JDM; Robert Leon, Correction Enterprises Administration; E.A. Christofferson, Correction Enterprises-Manpower; Michael Rothwell, DART-Cherry; and Sylvester Goodwin, Correction Human Resources-EEO.

A second group of 22 correction managers have already begun the program.