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November 16, 2006
Numerous man hours, buckets of
paint, mounds of paper mache and piles of wood resulted in the
Arizona Department of Corrections won First Place for its
float, “Champions of Freedom”,
in the 2006 Phoenix Veterans Day Parade. The department
beat out nearly 100 other entries in this year’s parade to win
this distinguished recognition.
The parade float, constructed on an 18 wheeler, honored
ADC’s veterans and active military, who account for one quarter of the
department’s total workforce and nearly one third of the CO series.
Ninety-nine brave coworkers are on active duty and another 74 are at the
ready, on standby for deployment to protect our country.
Carrying on a tradition of building an award-winning
entry, staff and inmates of ASPC-Lewis/Morey Unit spearheaded the design
and construction of the float. Lt. Robert Hamilton and COII Roxanne
Ellis of ASPC-Lewis were instrumental in getting the job done, along
with COIIs Joseph Hamilton, Michael Carbajal and Douglas Sweezer.
Lt. Hamilton and the COs worked more than 100 hours,
leading a crew of 25 inmates from the Work Based Education Program
through four weeks of preparation for the parade.
“The inmates were excited about the opportunity and
enthusiastic about the project,” Lt. Hamilton said. “They took our basic
plan and really took off with it and showed a lot of creativity and
ingenuity to make it something special.”
Better planning and more time went into this year’s
winning effort, following a Third Place finish in last year’s parade.
“This year was much more planned. We had more experience
and a better idea of where we wanted to go,” Lt. Hamilton added. This
was ADC’s second year to participate in the event.
Parade organizers presented ADC with a certificate, blue
ribbon and deluxe trophy at the recognition ceremony. Lt. Hamilton took
the trophy back to Lewis to cheer on staff and inmates who were unable
to attend the banquet.
Organizers of the Veterans Day Parade honored ADC and
other parade winners at a banquet November 16 at the Carl T. Hayden
Medical Center in Phoenix.
This year’s float participants included Sgt. Larry Brown
of ASPC-Lewis, COII Pete Barwick of ASPC-Yuma, COII Robert Baynes of
ASPC-Phoenix, COII Charles Browning of ASPC-Eyman, Sgt. Carl Combs of
ASPC-Tucson, COII Victor Gonzales of ASPC-Florence, Sgt. William Hart of
ASPC-Perryville, COII Betty Lehman, COII William Summers of ASPC-Lewis,
COII Ray Tabor of ASPC-Douglas and the ASPC-Tucson Honor guard.
The Phoenix VA Parade has grown to become the fourth
largest attended Veterans Day Parade in the nation.
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