Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 2, 1990 TAG: 9007020042
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: BLAND LENGTH: Medium
"Nobody ever started out to be a dope addict or a junkie," said Bruno, 40, now serving a 20-year sentence at Bland Correctional Center on cocaine charges. "Nobody ever woke up and said, `Hey, I'm gonna be a junkie!' "
Others serving time here echo the dangers of drugs and alcohol abuse.
"I'd been `saying no' to drugs all my life," said Eric Overstreet, 25, who was in college when other members of his soccer team persuaded him to try drugs. He has since been convicted of crimes in three states that he committed, he said, to pay for a habit he developed trying to duplicate that first high.
Bruno, Overstreet and five others are part of the correctional center's Programs Assisting Youth. PAY is sponsored by the Wilderness Jaycees - a chapter formed by inmates at Bland several years ago - and invites young people from schools, church groups and elsewhere to spend a couple hours listening to what the seven men have to say.
The PAY director is Ben Perdue, 42, who is serving two life terms plus 21 years. He was part of the similar Youth Assistance Program started in 1985 at Mecklenburg Correctional Center, and started this one after being transferred here in 1988. He changed the name because "I thought PAY sounded better than YAP."
Nearly 1,500 young people have heard a PAY presentation since the first gathering in February, 1989.
"My crime was an awful crime. I killed two people," Perdue said. He said alcoholism was the basis for what he did, and that he told himself he was drinking out of loneliness and to forget his problems.
"Since I've been in prison, I've found out what loneliness is and problems are," he said. "I miss my children. I miss doing things with them. I miss holding them. I miss seeing them grow up . . . When you've got as much time as I do, you don't know if you're ever going to get out."
"I smoked my first joint when I was 13 years old," said Jeff Masterson, now tagged as an habitual offender. "I have times now when I can't remember some of these guys' names," he said, referring to the other six PAY participants. "They say you can't get addicted to marijuana. It's a lie. I know."
Glen DeLoach said he made a lot of money selling cocaine, but its use got him kicked out of the Navy, led to his hurting someone badly while under the influence and "now I'm here."
Gerald Hooper tells visiting youngsters that his biggest mistake was fooling around with drugs instead of getting an education. He ended up killing one person and crippling another, he said, and nearly lost his life messing with drugs while in the state penitentiary.
Drugs can happen to anyone, the inmates say. Bruno is from a family of educators; he has a brother who is a doctor. Bruno was in his second year of college when his drug habit made him lose interest in his classes.
"I wish I could take every one of you and just shake you and get it in your head . . . Don't do it!" he told one group of young visitors.
Tyrone Perdue was a minister when drugs messed him up. He told the young people what it is like to live behind bars, to hardly ever see friends or family, to take showers in an open area "and when you get ready to use the toilet facilities, you know, there's no privacy."
Nor are prisons drug-free, they said, but PAY team members must be and they must submit to random testing to prove it, Ben Perdue said. Other inmates ask how they can join the program, he said. "I mention that random drug test, they trot off."
Masterson said he still has to fight his desire for marijuana when he smells someone smoking it. DeLoach pointed out a photo he had just seen in new literature the group was passing out and said the picture alone made him want it.
"In the 18 months this group has been in existence, they haven't come up dirty one time," said D.L. Smith, assistant warden, referring to test showing drug use.
Bland County has its own drug awareness program, which works closely with PAY and which was one of four programs in the state last year to win a CADRE Achievement Award for concrete and effective drug education programs for youth, parents and community.
Appointments for groups to attend PAY programs can be made by contacting Steven Presley, Route 2, Box 111, Bland, Va. 24315. Presley, a counselor, is staff sponsor for PAY, but said it is the inmates who have done the work.
Bruno urges visiting youngsters not to give in to peer pressure when it comes to using drugs. Of the five young people who were together when he smoked his first joint, he said, three are dead "and two of us are in prison."
"Make yourselves aware and pass the information on to other kids your age," he said. "You be the peers."
by CNB