Word: corpier
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Until he landed in prison on a two-to three-year rap for passing a bad check, John Corpier, 32, thought of himself as "a pretty worthless fellow." The son of a Texas dirt farmer, he left school after the eighth grade, worked at a prewar Civilian Conservation Corps camp until he joined the Air Force at 17. Though he made a respectable war record as a B-17 waist gunner in Europe, he never seemed able to settle down once he had left the service. He worked at radio and TV repair jobs in Alaska, Seattle and Palo Alto...
Prison had an extraordinary effect on Corpier. Time after time, members of the local Seventh-Day Adventist church came visiting, brought him a Bible and books to study. "It was the first time in my life," says Corpier, "that anyone had done anything for me that I didn't have to pay for. It made quite an impression." What could Corpier do, he asked himself, to help somebody else? Last summer he persuaded Associate Warden T. M. Woodruff of the New Mexico state prison to let him start a course in electronics for convicts...
Last week, up for parole, Model Prisoner Corpier gave his parole board a jolt. Though he had a job waiting for him, he said, he did not want to be sprung until he had trained at least one student to take over his course. As a matter of fact, he was not only willing to pass up future paroles; he would, if necessary, stay until his term ended in 1959 and "the warden kicks me out." Corpier had a compelling reason for such a decision: if he could prepare his students to qualify for FCC licenses, they would surely find...
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