The ECHO, Volume 93, Number 1, February 2021 Page: FRONT COVER
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Distributed Free to those within TDCJ
vol. 93, No. 1, February 2021
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BUZZ continued on pg. 5 >
WALKER continued on pg. 8 >
JUAREZ continued on pg. 4 >
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Honeybees
sweeten prison
crop production
Excellence in teaching:
Windham teacher
Juarez uses past to
build futures
’W* 'W* ONEYBEES WERE R E-INTRODUCEDINTO THE TEXAS DEFART-
ment of Criminal .Justice (TDCJ) Manufacturing,
Agribusiness and Logistics (MAL) Division’s Agribusi-
.JL. JL. ness, Land and Minerals (ALM) edible crop production
in 2006. The project began when two hives were captured, including
one found under a prison recreation yard table. Additional colonies
were later purchased and, to date, TDCJ has 13 units establishing
viable beehives and colonies within the edible crop programs, with
some units housing multiple boxes/hives. These colonies continue
to be a mix of both purchased bees and relocated wild beehives and
swarms.
The most important thing bees do is pollinate (move pollen
between plants), allowing fertilization. While wild bees and
other natural pollinators provide pollination to the ALM crops,
the addition of farm-raised colonies improves pollination,
which in turn increases the amount of vegetables harvested.
Paso in a large public school
system. In addition to her
teaching responsibilities, she
was also science fair coor-
dinator, head of the science
department and track coach.
Despite a demanding and
active career, she traded public
school days for WSD class-
rooms within the state prison
system of Texas Department of
Criminal Justice.
fresh greens. For many, that
remains the case, but the
program could eventually
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lessons. Every student who crosses the stage and overcomes so much
difficulty and hardship is a stand-out success story,” she says.
k In 1966 TDCJ and Lee College partnered to form the Lee
H College Huntsville Center, the largest post-secondary correctional
B education program in Texas and the second largest in the nation.
F Today it offers academic and vocational instruction to eligible
TDCJ residents while maintaining its freeworld student population.
In the fall of 2020, the student population of Lee College was 7,749,
including 989 students in TDCJ in Huntsville, Texas.
LEE COLLEGE PRESIDENT continued on pg. 8 >
I Letters to Darby
Page 2
Working in Prison
Page 6
Chow Hound
Page 9
Sudoku & Puzzles
Pages 10 & 11
Sports
Page 12
s
This is a blueprint
for what institutional
food systems could
look like.
A \
published Since 1928
Unashamed, undaunted:
Despite adversity, Lee College president
leads students to academic excellence
John Walter Flagg — ECHO Staff
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one’s life. Instead of seeing her
situation as hopeless, she began
to align positive choices with a
drive to succeed. Immersing
herself into academics at
Windham, Walker soon earned
a high school diploma at the
San Saba Unit, and after grad-
uation, became a tutor. Later,
Walker was presented a Dis-
tinguished Student Award for
her devotion to learning and
assisting her peers.
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“The students at the Huntsville Center [those programs within the TDCJ] have
many strengths and points of diversity that can be turned into valuable
a "W" A HEN I INTERVIEWED FOR THIS JOB AND WAS ASKED WHY I WANTED TO
W /W / be a college president, the first thing I said was,
>/ WZ ‘Look at the Huntsville Center—it is the most
V V sensational story; who wouldnt want to be
the president of a college like that?’ it was the most inspirational .
story I ever heard!” says Lynda Villanueva, Ph.D., president of Lee I
College and role model for Lee students incarcerated in the Texas V
Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ).
Villanueva, who is relatively new to correctional education, is
the tenth president to lead Lee College since its Baytown beginnings
in 1934. She is the third woman to hold this position and the first
minority president at Lee College.
William Hill-ECHO Staff
■P.....■.......WHE PAST YEAR PROVIDED
tremendous life chal-
I lenges on a global
JL scale: the COVID-19
pandemic, hurricane-induced
evacuations and the rapid
rise of distance learning. For-
tunately for students in R.
Juarez’s CHANGES 3 class at
the Sanchez State Jail, their
teacher is not one to back down
from a challenge. Instead,
she embraces it. That is just
one of many reasons Juarez
is one of Windham School
District’s (WSD) 2020 Lane
Murray Excellence in Teaching
(LMET) honorees for her work
in teaching life skills. The
LMET initiative acknowledges
teachers’ contributions to both
the success of their students
and the success of the instruc-
tional program itself.
Before joining WSD, .Juarez
taught junior high science in El
a 1
“ill
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grow enough vegetables to feed
all 3,800 residents. Despite
their many constraints and for
most of them a lack of higher
education, these residents
are pioneering one of the best
models we have for feeding
n
ill
A VARIETY OF ENTRY
/% level jobs were the
pre-incarceration
JL. JLwork of Kimberly
Walker, a former Windham
School District (WSD) stu-
dent and resident of the Texas
Department of Cri minal Justice
(TDCJ). Post release, she now
has something she considers to
be her career. Walker is a full-
time electrician apprentice at
Facility Solutions Group (FSG),
a national provider of residen-
tial and commercial electrical
r
2,
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ourselves efficiently and
sustainably in the future.
With the global popu-
lation expected to reach
nearly 10 billion people by
2050, the need to grow food
efficiently and sustaina bly is
more important than ever.
As a writer with a back-
ground in environmental
science, I have reported
and seen up close how tra-
ditional agriculture uses
our finite land and water
resources inefficiently:
upwards of 70 percent of
freshwater and more than
half of arable land are used
to grow food.
FOOD continued on pg. 5 >
Wired up for change:
Walker forges
new life with
CTE training,
apprenticeship
Smarts
■ ■
Bees swanr on honeycomb at a TDCJ facilty hive. Photo courtesy of TDCJ.
The Buzz:
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Dr. Villanueva
Photo courtesy of Lee College
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7 / yZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
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HU
N A 4OO-ACRE
■ Bfarm in Anderson
W W County, goldfish started, residents rarely ate
roil a huge water
tank. The water, thick with
nutrient-dense fish drop-
pings, is pumped through
rows of PVC pipes where
thousands of heads of let-
tuce poke out from holes
drilled in the plastic. Tan-
gled white roots sway in the
water, drinking nitrogen
as the plants grow. The
farmers in white jumpsuits
tending these systems are
incarcerated residents of
the Michael Unit, one of the
largest maximum-security
prisons in Texas.
1RI
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Kimberly Walker. Photo courtesy of W ndham School District (WSD! John Walter Flagg—ECHO Staff
services based in Austin. She
is also s part time customer
service representative at Home
Depot. Walker says she had a
vision of the life she wanted
and then turned her obstacles
into opportunities.
“You never know what oppor-
tunities are available to you
unless you take that first step,”
she says.
A brief interlude within the
TDCJ provided Walker with
the clarify to see how choices
and consequences can impact
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R. Juarez. Courtesy of Windham
' School District (WSD)I
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Photo courtesy of TDCJ Communfca^^^^
In addition to the therapeutic and health benefits for the residents at the Michael Unit, the aquaponics program also serves the
community that the residents will eventually reenter. This photo was taken before the pandemic.
Essay for The Houston Chronicle, By Ariella Sitnke (Nov. 25,2020; Updated online: Nw. 27,2020) Article reprinted in The ECHO with permission.
Three years ago, when the ourselves efficiently and
prisons aquaponics farm
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Serving salads while serving time:
Future of sustainable food
found in Texas prison program
3
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Texas. Department of Criminal Justice. The ECHO, Volume 93, Number 1, February 2021, newspaper, February 2021; Huntsville, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1364631/m1/1/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.