Prison school seeks alumni for reunion

AKRON (AP) -- As many as 3,000 students once attended this school, but finding alumni for an upcoming reunion has been difficult.
"I've been working on this for about a month and I've only been able to get hold of 14," said Donnell Haynes of Mansfield, himself an alumnus of the school at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield.
Haynes has been helping plan Saturday's reunion for students who took high school or college courses at the maximum-security prison, and their teachers.
At the reunion, former students can revisit their cells or walk the dirt yard.
There will be a luncheon featuring former Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction head Dr. Bennett J. Cooper as guest of honor.
The idea of the reunion came from Dr. Jon Flood, now of Fond Du Lac, Wis., who launched classes taught by Ashland University and Field High School at the prison in the early 1970s. It was the first certified high school in Ohio in a prison.