Sue Morrow: Ex-columnist reflects on life's journey from prison to success

Thanks to Facebook, I reconnected with a former Nevada Appeal colleague of sorts, columnist Jerry Crane.

Jerry wrote for us from the medium security prison where he was imprisoned at age 24 for kidnapping a local bank manager's wife and attempted bank robbery in the early 1970s. He was paroled in 1986.

While incarcerated, Jerry created a newspaper called "Being There" about prison life, issues and events which was printed on a copy machine with expenses paid by an inmate organization. He later accepted an offer to write a weekly column for the Appeal, also called "Being There," for which he won a Best Column in a Daily Newspaper award.

In a telephone interview with Jerry, who lives in the Seattle area and has changed his name to Jerry Jaz, we discussed the impetus of the crime which sent him to prison. Jerry was by no means underprivileged. His stepfather was host of a successful television show.

Jerry alluded to "the idea of the moment of decision that all of us face in various times in our lives. You had a choice and even if the choice meant you sat on your hands and did nothing, which sometimes for me turned out to be the better choice.

"Lots of times I didn't see all the options that I really had, and so it seemed I had to do something where sometimes the doing something was to simply wait until the emotions passed."

His efforts while incarcerated weren't confined to journalism. He told me he worked with a legislator toward a bill that provided that fines against convicted criminals be used to fund the Victims' Compensation Fund and also that those assessments would go directly to the schools.

Since his parole, Jerry has been involved in a lot of successful endeavors. Most recently, he and his wife, Kay, founded Green-Blueprint, designed as a place people can get sustainable building information geared to their technical need. He's also working on an Internet application that would provide information about known human traffickers.

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Thanks to all who e-mailed me when I fouled up - pardon the pun - in my last column in which I used the word foul instead of fowl.

• Sue Morrow is a longtime Nevada journalist and member of the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame. She may be reached at soozymorrow@yahoo.com.