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Antelope Valley Press

Ex-cons contribute to kids through Visions of Hope

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press May 20, 2002.

By Bill Warford
Valley Press Senior Writer

LANCASTER - Clean-cut and well-dressed at 34, Rory Dirden looks nothing like your stereotypical ex-con. "What happened? How'd you start on a path that took you to prison?" he was asked.

Dirden replied quickly, and with a single word:" Drugs."

It started out innocently enough. It was all in fun. It was something to do with his friends, something he did for recreation. Those dire warnings about getting hooked and running into trouble with the law? Those were meant for somebody else. Not for him.

Or so he thought.

"I was 15 years old and living in Quartz Hill," Driden said. "I had been a pretty good kid, never been in trouble. I started smoking marijuana. Not long after that, I found I had no desire to play football anymore. I had played football and baseball, but marijuana just took my desire away."

It was all downhill from there, and eventually Dirden went to prison. Now he's helping young people avoid making the same mistakes he did. He's a member of Visions of hope, a nonprofit organization that features speakers who have turned their lives around and now share their stories with kids.

"Life is full of new beginnings," said Richard Kaplan, who came back from a life of drugs and crime to become a successful businessman, married with a family, including a charming new baby son.

A former chef who worked in the oil fields of Alaska, Kaplan got caught up in the "drug of the '80's" - cocaine. He was making a lot of money but spending more. His self-destruction led him to commit an armed robbery, not really caring if he came through it alive or not.

He did seven years in prison and has been out for three. He's stayed out because of three things, he said. "Number one is my faith. Second, I'm surrounded by people who are positive, on the right path. And third is my desire never to go back there."

That's Kaplan's new beginning. For Rory Dirden, the new beginning meant a life free of drugs, and graduation from trucking school. "I was first in my class," he said proudly.

The organization Visions of hope was the vision of Dean Crenshaw, who worked 20 years in the correctional system. He worked at the prison in Lancaster for several years and used to get requests from the community for speakers. He put together a group called " Stay on the Streets," taking carefully screened volunteer inmates to talk to kids in the Valley.

"But the kids would ask: 'How do we know you're going to do the things you say you're going to do when you get out?" Crenshaw said.

It was a good question. Now, with Visions of Hope, Crenshaw can show the kids ex-prisoners who have succeeded in straightening themselves out.

They talk to kids in language the kids can understand. it's not a "Scared Straight" program where they yell and scream at the audience. It's just straight talk, and they also offer entertainment such as hip-hop dancers and music, along with that traditional teen favorite, pizza.

All of this and more will be part of "Get in the Black Box," a Visions of Hope event Wednesday, May 8, Beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the Lancaster Performing Arts Center, 750 West Lancaster Blvd. For information on this event or to get involved with Visions of Hope, call dean Crenshaw at (661) 274-4155, Ext. 212.

It's one thing when parents, teachers or straight-up guys like dean Crenshaw urge kids to stay off drugs - but it's another when they hear it from guys who have been there.

That's attracted Dean Henderson, a member of the Palmdale Planning Commission, to become a member of the Visions of Hope board of directors. "I have friends in all socio-economic levels," Henderson said. "And it doesn't matter who they are. They have the same problems with their kids."

So Visions of Hope is trying to chip away a those problems, one kid at a time. If a speaker gets through to a kid, even it's only one, that makes it worth it. Carrie Kaplan, Richard's wife, says:

"Saving one life, that's a major accomplishment."