HAMLET — Stanley Franklin has the same goals as 14 others who graduated from the fourth set of truck driver-training classes at Richmond Community College. He wants, he says, to move his life forward.
On Tuesday, he graduated with his brother Curtis, who was class president. Franklin himself got out of prison in April, after serving 21 years, and had a lot to improve to himself and others.
“You can do it if you want to do it,” he said of beginning to turn his life around.
The 10-week class, offered each fall, allows students to obtain commercial driver’s licenses, which qualify them for a wide range of jobs. Nine already have jobs lines up, said lead instructor Jim Womack, who also bragged that more students earned “A’s” in this set of classes than in any of the program’s previous iterations.
One of those “A” students was Franklin.
“It took a lot of strength and a lot of faith and a lot of belief,” Franklin said after the graduation ceremony. “I can’t hold no grudges, and I’ve got to keep moving forward.”
Franklin, 48, said the rape charge for which he served time was his first run-in with the law. In prison, he said, he got only one write-up for poor behavior.
There were times he wanted to give up, he said, watching others fall into drugs and other unproductive behaviors. But he focused on being one of the prisoners who would keep the younger guys in check so they wouldn’t throw their lives away.
“What made me want to get out (of prison) was so that the others guys could see me,” he said. “It inspires them to do right when they get out.”
Since being out, Franklin has worked in lawn care service with his brother Curtis, 50, and said he had started a nonprofit to help prisoners publish their writings.
During his search for truck-driving jobs, he hasn’t yet had to deal with the specter of his legal record, although it has forced him previous into jobs doing “back-breaking” work.
Because of his past, Franklin said, he has to give “110 percent” at work and in class.
“It’s hard to deal with. I keep my head up keep smiling … keep pushing,” he said. “I’m not going to give up. Too many people in prison and out of prison are relying on me.”
RCC President Dale McInnis said at the ceremony while looking at the cluster of new graduates that he was thankful that participants had had the “courage to stop what you were doing and make this great change in your life.”
“It’s the moments like this, when we see lives change and families change for the better, that we here at this institution are reminded of what we’re supposed to be doing, and we work harder and better for the next time,” McInnis said. “Thank you for inspiring us to be better.”
President Dale McInnis told recent graduates that seeing "lives change and families change" was the reward for working at the college.