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Paroled prisoner thanks students for transformation and freedom

By Felix Cortez

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    SOLEDAD, California (KSBW) — A Soledad prisoner who served more than 30 years for murder was paroled Wednesday morning, and he very well may have roughly two dozen Palma High School students to thank.

Those students were on hand outside the Correctional Training Facility, Soledad, holding banners that read “We are family” and “Reggie Forever” as Reggie Glover was driven off the prison grounds.

“Very emotional but joyful, all in the same sentence. I couldn’t put it in words of the feelings I’m going through, but the one thing I can say is they are all good, they’re all good feelings,” said Glover.

Now 51 years old, Glover was just 19 when he was convicted of first-degree murder and given 25 years to life. After serving more than 3-decades, Glover was paroled on Wednesday, a changed man who had a lot of time to think about his mistakes and the pain he caused.

“We are men who transformed our lives, changed our belief systems to become better people, and that’s what’s going to keep me out of here because I’m no longer the person that came in as a 19-year-old kid today. I’m a man with meaning and purpose in my life,” Glover said.

Helping in Glover’s transformation is a unique program between CTF Soledad and Palma called the Phoenix Alliance.

KSBW profiled the program when it went behind the prison walls last year. Students and inmates exchanged personal stories while encouraging the value of making good choices, developing goals, and, most importantly, taking ownership of one’s actions.

“One of the things he taught us is that there’s three things you can control, and it’s your attitude, effort, and just how you show up every day and that everything is a choice and that you have a options in your life,” said Lucas Milburn a Palma senior who participated in the program.

“Ever since I started coming here, I abide by, one mistake can’t define who you really are. It’s about how you bounce back and overcome whatever you’re going through, and today this is a definition of what that is because he’s bounced back and can’t wait to see what he does in the future,” added Job Barroso, a Palma junior.

Palma’s partnership with their brothers in blue focused on helping to shape the lives of youngsters while bringing positive change to inmates.

“I might be your neighbor one day, and because of my life-changing, you’ll have a good neighbor because of my transformation, you have a good neighbor, and I appreciate that,” Glover said.

And Glover said this to the Palma students as he said his goodbyes to them, “This is the next chapter in my life. I’m going to do great things. I’m going to do great things and I will see you guys. I will, I will be coming back around. Thank you all, appreciate it,” Glover said.

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