Stacked Keys Podcast
The idea to talk to women who are out there living and making a difference is where the Stacked Keys Podcast was born. There are women who make a difference, but never make a wave while paddling through life. Immediately I can think of a dozen or more who impacted me, but I want more. I want to talk to those I don't know and I want to share with an audience that might need the inspiration to find their own beat. This podcast is to feature women who are impressive in the work world-- or in raising a family -- or who have hobbies that can make us all be encouraged. Want to hear what makes these women passionate and get up in the morning or what they wish they had known earlier in life? Grab your keys and STOMP to your own drum.
Stacked Keys Podcast
Episode 212-- Annette Funderburk -- Breaking the Cycle: Prison Education and Second Chances
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Annette Funderburk, President of Ingram State Technical College, brings us inside the transformative world of prison education with striking candor and compassion. Her institution stands alone among Alabama's community colleges—dedicated exclusively to serving incarcerated individuals across the state's correctional facilities.
"Just because you made a mistake doesn't make you a mistake," Funderburk shares, revealing the philosophy that drives her work helping people rebuild their lives behind prison fences. As a first-generation college graduate herself, she understands profoundly how education creates pathways where none seemed possible before.
The conversation takes us deep into the challenges and triumphs of teaching in correctional settings. From hiring instructors who see potential where others might only see crimes, to developing comprehensive support systems that follow students from incarceration to employment, Ingram State's approach addresses the whole person. Funderburk explains how they're breaking generational cycles by helping parents become positive role models through education and stable employment.
Most compelling are the stories of transformation—watching students arrive lacking confidence, then witnessing their evolution into disciplined learners preparing for life beyond prison walls. The college doesn't just teach technical skills but focuses on building critical thinking abilities that were often missing when poor decisions led to incarceration.
Whether you're interested in criminal justice reform, education's transformative power, or leadership in challenging environments, this conversation will shift your perspective on what's possible when we invest in second chances. Listen now and discover how stomping to your own drum—as the podcast's theme suggests—can mean creating opportunities where society often sees only dead ends.
Music "STOMP" used by permission of artist Donica Knight Holdman and Jim Huff
Podcast Introduction and Welcome
Speaker 1I'm walking all alone down my yellow brick road and I stomp to the beat of my own drum. I got my pockets full of dreams and they're busting at the seams, going boom, boom boom.
Speaker 2Welcome to Stacked Keys Podcast. I'm your host, amy Stackhouse. This is a podcast to feature women who are impressive in the work world or in raising a family, or who have hobbies that make us all feel encouraged. Want to hear what makes these women passionate to get up in the morning, or what maybe they wish they'd known a little bit earlier in their lives.
Speaker 1Grab your keys and stomp to your own drum. Whatever you do, it ain't nothing on me, because I'm doing my thing and I hold the key to all my wants and all my dreams, like an old song everything will be all right.
Meet Annette Thunderberg
Speaker 2Well, I am super excited. I have wanted to have this guest on for a while, and so I'm really excited that we were able to schedule our times and cannot wait for everybody to meet you. I welcome, annette Thunderberg.
Speaker 3Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you for allowing me this opportunity.
Speaker 2Oh, I'm thrilled and I cannot wait. I want to start right out of the gate to catch people up to who you are. Tell people who you are, Annette, both professionally and personally.
Speaker 3OK, well, thank you. Professionally, I am the president of Ingram State Technical College and we are part of the Alabama Community College system and we serve Alabama's incarcerated population community college system and we serve Alabama's incarcerated population. So it's a little bit different than the other 23 sister community colleges that we have and our college serving the incarcerated population exclusively. We serve the entire state of Alabama, so we partner with the Alabama Department of Corrections as well as the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles to serve those that are currently in an Alabama correctional facility or that have recently been paroled or are on probation. Personally, I do live in Prattville, alabama, and am honored to serve in this role as president and serve our faculty and staff Worked for Chancellor Jimmy Baker of the community college system. My husband and I have three children, grown children, and one brand new grandchild, so we're excited to have Barrett in our family.
Speaker 2Yeah, oh, wow, wow. Well, tell me something. You have such a huge role and impact in your career. Why did you think this is important? What makes you really light up? Because every time you talk about it, you light up. What is it that makes you light up and feel like that this is an important aspect to our community and state?
Speaker 3Well, I did grow up in a very rural part of Alabama, in a small place called Winterboro, alabama, and, being from that area, I'm a first-generation college student. In my family, my parents didn't attend or graduate from a college. My father did not graduate from high school. So, having grown up in that environment, I realized how much education means to everyone. More importantly, not only how much it means, but how much it can change your journey.
Speaker 3And then my first nine years of my professional life, I was a county administrator in Tallapoosa and Talladega counties, serving the jail of those communities counties.
Speaker 3Excuse me, I realized that if those people that were incarcerated had a different opportunity, then we could change not only their trajectory of hopefully not returning to the county jail or to the prison, but I had an opportunity to see how that can also change their families' lives.
Speaker 3And having then I moved into the community college system in 2008, and, serving at the community system office, served all of the colleges, all of the community colleges in Alabama, and just really gained a passion for what Ingram State is doing. And in 1965, the Alabama legislature decided that it would dedicate a community and technical college just to serve Alabama's incarceration population to lower recidivism. But since being here, I really recognized what education can bring to this environment and to these individuals and how it can change generational poverty and generational trajectories of coming into prison. Most of the people. If we do not change it, their children will also be here and, having worked in this environment since 2017, I recognize that it is something that I want to lower the rate of recidivism and certainly lower the chance that their children will come here as well.
Speaker 2Wow. So, annette, how do you protect your heart in your?
Speaker 3job. Well, it is very difficult and I go home and tell my husband, ken, sometimes how heavy our role is, not just mine but all of our faculty, because we have had wonderful successes but we certainly have, you know, the opportunities to see people that aren't successful and do return to prison. I stick to the facts and I stick to the policies and we make sure that we understand and the students understand that come here that are sentenced to one of the prisons here. Everyone that comes to Ingram has committed a felony. So we are in medium and maximum custody prisons in Alabama. So we want them to make sure that they are disciplined and they have a desire for education. It is not required.
Speaker 3People often say, oh well, you have a captive audience. Well, not really, because they have a choice to come to education or not to choose to come to education. So we want to make sure that we are engaged with them and that they understand that there's a requirement of discipline that they come here. If they are not doing the things that they need to be doing then and they do find themselves in trouble, then they cannot return to our college within six months or they have to wait six months, excuse me, and then if the action is severe enough, then they cannot return at all. So it's a privilege and it should be a privilege. So, with that in mind, I have an expectation. My heart has an expectation that we're going to change their heart, oh wow.
Speaker 2Yeah, so it's not just about you. I mean, you're looking always outward.
Speaker 3Correct right Without this opportunity. I really feel, Amy, that we are teaching them and helping them to develop ways to have critical thinking skills. Many of them are here because they could not make the decisions that they needed to make for their future. Many of them made the decision that they needed to make for that moment without the future in mind, and so I have an expectation that it's not about me at all, that this is a calling, that I've been placed here for that reason, and that's to help them be better mothers and better fathers for better sisters, children, you know, for their families, because prison isn't just a penalty for the people that are in prison. You know and I'm not making an excuse for what they've done, the crime that they've been, you know, they've committed or been found guilty of, but it penalizes the parents, it penalizes the family members, the children whose father or mother is in prison. They're penalized as well. So what I want to do is make a better world for them.
Speaker 2Yeah, wow. Well, do you find that you have a hard time stepping away from it and dealing with Annette, who's not involved with so many different life types than your own different life types than your own Absolutely.
Speaker 3And, to be frank with you, I don't do that well. Work-life balance I don't feel like I have at all and even though I try to do better and I pray about doing better, I do have a very hard time leaving it here inside the fence. I try to leave it when I exit the fence to go out into the free world. Every day I try to be better and have that work-life balance, but I'm not a success in doing that.
Finding Work-Life Balance in Service
Speaker 2Well, I'll tell you, I'm not sure that many people are a good work-life balance. It just kind of all mixes up and some days one gets more than the other and other days the other gets. So maybe that's the balance, instead of a daily Right, maybe. So You're right. Well, you're involved in a lot of things, though. You're involved in the community as well. I mean, how do you pick and choose? What are the better things to do and be involved in?
Speaker 3Well, I have had to be careful, right and realize that I can be involved in too much and then therefore not be involved in anything because I'm not giving the intent of being where I'm 100% where I am where my feet are. So I try to be intentional about making those choices. I do want to be part of the community because I feel like giving back and making a better world for those around us is our responsibility, and paying your civic rent is very important to me. I wouldn't be where I am today if somebody had not put out a hand and lifted me with care, lifted me with grace, lifted me with a professional mentorship, and so that really is why I want to give back. Lifted me with grace, lifted me with a professional mentorship, and so that really is why I want to give back.
Speaker 3So I've tried to be intentional with being involved in Rotary and giving 100% to that, and then being involved in the chamber, commerce chambers around where our college serves. Now we do serve the entire state, all the way from North Alabama to South and all the way to East and West and all of the correctional facilities in between. So I can't be involved in all of those, but where I live. I want to be able to give back and also provide my experiences of making education important and helping to help people recognize that if you do not have a good educational base, you will not have a good economic base. People will live and work where they can send their children to school and with comfort, that is, safe and with a good education.
Speaker 2Yeah, true. Well, you mentioned mentors. Do you have any mentors that have stood out to you in your path?
Speaker 3Well, certainly I've worked at the community college system since 2008,. And I've got other community college presidents that I before I was even a president. I looked up to Vicki, Dr Vicki, Carol Wicks at Wallace State and Hansville Just a great mentor to me. Dr Linda Young, who just retired from Wallace, and Dothan both were great mentors to me in providing a pathway for women to be in this environment. Now they do not work with the Department of Corrections as closely as I do, which is a predominantly male environment as well, but those two other colleagues have certainly provided a way for me. And Dr Chance, the Chancellor, Jimmy Baker, was certainly a mentor to me as well in the governmental world, learning how to be and move and maneuver strategic planning through government relations. He's certainly been a great mentor to me.
Speaker 2Oh, wow, well, what do you think? What would your description of a good leader be? I mean, you just named off a few women leaders that it's like wow, here in this one little area you've got these tremendous women in leadership roles. So what would you say your description of a good leader would be?
Speaker 3Well, I think the first thing that comes to my mind is a leader that believes in their people and that their people believe in them and you know you could say those are just words, but I mean really believe in them would do anything it took to make the organization better.
Speaker 3The second thing I would think that would be a great leader is someone who can organize strategic plans of, and groups of people we can all talk about. I would like to get a reading program in the library, right, but who is it amongst us that can organize the people, the place, the books, to actually bring that together to start a reading program in the library? And oftentimes being a good leader is not the person that's in the front, but it may be the person that's willing to be in the back, pushing people or helping people to be successful to get the reading program in the library. I often say it doesn't matter who carries the water, somebody just needs to be carrying right. So I think a leader is someone who recognizes the water needs to be carried and then gets the water carried right. You may or may not carry it, but gets the water from here to there.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. So being able to be a motivator at the same time, right.
Speaker 3I think it's so very important. I have about one hundred and ninety employees that serve correctional facilities across the state, so hiring good people is the very most important thing to me. You can teach them to do a lot of things. You can teach them to be an instructor if you hire a good carpenter. Right, If you hire a good person that's a carpenter, you can teach them to teach carpentry. But if they're not a good person, you can't teach them to be a good person. And so for Ingram and our employees, I want to hire good people that then provide a good base to teach our students.
Speaker 2Yeah, wow. So what do you think you'll always need help with, whether that be personal or professional? What do you think will always be something that Annette will look for somebody else or to work on?
Speaker 3Well, I think that that balance that I talked about earlier is something that I'm such a type A personality I think I literally would work all the time and and I intuitively I know that it's it's good for your body and your soul to take breaks, right. But even if I sit down to watch a movie, all I think about are the emails that I haven't returned or calls that I haven't made, or you know. So I think I will always need help with that work life balance and recognizing that I really am a better work person if I've taken that break and enjoyed life a little bit more work person if I've taken that break and enjoyed life a little bit more, yeah, well.
Speaker 2And as your kids have grown and now there's a grandbaby, do you find it a little bit easier to step away just because you want to? I mean, when their kids are young, you have to step away, right. They get older and you kind of get this emptiness that you can fill up with emails, right. Are you finding that that shifts a little bit now?
Speaker 3Well, they do not live close, so I do not have that closeness yet of a grandchild, but I do feel like I've been more intentional right, that the time that we travel to where they are is a more intentional spot right, and then when I'm there I feel comfortable in putting it away. I've worked harder to get caught up, if you will, to be intentional of the time, yeah.
Speaker 2So can you tell if you need an adventure and what kind of adventures do you find yourself in?
Speaker 3I'm not really an adventurous person.
Speaker 3No no, personally, I don't really have any hobbies, you know, but I love college football, so this time of the year is my favorite time of the year, and anybody that knows me knows that I'm very passionate about college football and this is what I call my favorite time of the year, and so I guess, if I do any traveling, I love to travel, so doing some of that is my favorite thing, but also traveling with college football is always a fun adventure, and then we make you know, we make fun trips along with that, which are also fun.
Speaker 2Yeah, what kind of fun trip.
Speaker 3Like, for example, we'll be going to the Alabama LSU game in a couple of weeks Alabama LSU game in a couple of weeks so we will travel around Baton Rouge and we'll go to the Capitol and we'll do you know things like that that are fun around the Alabama LSU game. That's about as adventurous as I get. Yeah, kind of a boring life in that way.
Speaker 2Well, hey, when you've got it full of what you're doing, you know boring is as you want to look at it. So where do you go to solve a problem? I mean, do you have what grounds?
Working Without Bias in Corrections
Speaker 3you. Well, I read a lot of motivational leadership books. I certainly read biblical verses to try to make sure that I am praying the way that God would want me to pray, right. I shouldn't say we all pray, but sometimes I find myself praying for what Annette wants right instead of praying for the way God wants me to pray, being full of grace, trying to be thankful for the blessings, the wonderful opportunity that I have every day to work with the instructors that we work with and with this population. It's not for everyone. Everyone couldn't work behind the fence and in a correctional facility like all of us do and to have that real burning passion to help and then being able to have that opportunity is certainly a blessing. So I try to always sharpen myself with the leadership books that I read, just to make sure that I have a clear mind of being fair. Oftentimes in positions like this, we can let our personalities come into play, and it's so important to be fair.
Speaker 2Yeah, how do you check that? How do you check your biases and your? You know, I mean that just seems like for the average person. Okay, so you go to your office and you do your work, or you go and you teach your students, but there might be an added layer that you have to kind of work through with the populations that you work with. So how do you help your instructors check their own biases?
Speaker 3Well, number one we try to focus on do not learn about the past of your students and the crimes that they've committed, because you have to treat them all the same and if you got involved in the crime, you would have a feeling You're human right. You would have a feeling about that. It won't change your responsibility. Their crime does not change your current responsibility. So I try to focus.
Speaker 3I never look at our students' crimes, what their history was, and I tell them you are where you are and life brought you to Ingram. You've made the choice to come to Ingram. You're going to get out, because everyone that we serve will be released from prison and you're going to have an opportunity to be out in the free world, get jobs and be a taxpaying citizen in Alabama. We want to get you to where you feel comfortable doing that. You're trained doing that. Get you to where you feel comfortable doing that. You're trained doing that, and so it is the responsibility of those of us that serve them to be fair and not be biased.
Speaker 3So I have no idea. I don't look. I intentionally do not look until we're going to post a success story or, you know, do something like that on social media, and then we make sure, obviously, that it's not something that we wouldn't want representing Ingram. We certainly look it up, but I pray constantly to be fair and to try to look at things black and white. I'm also very policy driven. Everything in policy is black and white and I treat everybody the same way every time because of that.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah Well, I was having this thought while you were talking that my dad was a pastor for a number of years and I can remember him talking about tithing and never looking at the tithe roster because for him he'd see that person as different if they're one thing versus another, or judge, you know, in some capacity, because there's the human nature, and remember him saying that and I thought well, that's what you do, is you remove yourself Right Human temptation? So that's that's interesting. So complete the sentence for me or fill in the blank. People who blank have the most courage in the world.
Speaker 3People who blank have the most courage in the world. I'm going to say people who teach have the most courage in the world, and maybe it's because I'm surrounded by teachers. I am not a teacher, right. My history, my professional career has been in public administration and in governmental affairs world and in you know, governmental affairs world, the knowledge, the skills that they need to learn. That's a that's a huge responsibility. You know that is a huge responsibility and to do that, you're constantly performing, constantly performing, and I think that you have a lot of courage because you're going where that person has never been before. You're helping that person get to somewhere where they've never been before and, be it in kindergarten, be it in the doctoral program or be it here at Ingram, you're teaching someone that may be at different levels, someone you know 12, 15, 20 people in the classroom that are in different levels. So you have to have the courage to stand up, do that, have the knowledge and teach the knowledge.
Speaker 2And so my answer is that those that teach, yeah, I like that answer because you know those teachers can you make. I can't really remember specifically my grade school, but I know that there was some pretty impactful people. Probably the first teacher I can remember that had huge impact was a seventh grade math teacher. So, think about how many years can go hanging on that person.
Speaker 3Absolutely.
Speaker 2Right. So I agree with your statement there. Yes, well, what makes you you have to kind of make judgments in your career? You make them in your personal life as well, but what makes you know that you can trust someone?
Speaker 3I'm going to say I go by my gut feeling a lot, right, I really, I really have that, that women's intuition or the sixth sense. You know, I'm not sure that I have many talents, but I do feel like that. Reading people is a talent of mine and I don't trust a lot of people because of what I do and because I see the opportunities that people can be taken advantage of or taken for granted. But I'm a very honest person and I try and want people to be honest with me. So I have, I work hard to look people in the eye, I work hard to be intentional about reading their body language and then making sure to follow up, and then I think that's how I learn if I can trust someone.
Speaker 2Yeah, Well, you know, I guess I can fall on the side of naive, and when you're raising kids and their friends come through and you kind of sum up who and what you've seen so much, and so was it hard for you to be that mom that was kind of accepting of whoever and whatever. Or, you know, did you find that that was? Were you harder on your kids then? Or maybe you weren't in this position when you're I was not.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, our children was, were older, and so I wasn't in this position at all. You think it would have been hard. I do, I do, and I think I would have been much more strict than I was, although I worked in governmental affairs for many of the years that my, my son, was young, and so I had that elected official experience. You know relationship experience of trusting and working with them, but I do feel like that if I had been in this position while they were your, your children are around, those that you, that you trust, and that their parents are trustworthy too.
Speaker 2Right. So the more you see, the more it's like I don't know. I don't know how protected, protective I would become, but yeah, that could be interesting. So what always makes you smile? What's the one thing? If you're having a rough day, that it's going to just change the day for Annette.
Speaker 3Well, here at work, you know, we do have a lot of employees, we do a lot of campuses. We do have a lot of barriers, you know, trying to work with two different state agencies, you know all of those barriers that come out. But what makes me feel complete is when I can walk out and walk the hallway or walk out to our welding shop and visit with our students, because the average student here at Ingram is, you know, is 38 to 42 years old, and so they're adults and you can feel their, the them learning. You know, you can see how they're learning and the differences that they're making. You know they can come in looking, you know, one way very unkept, if you will, with a very low self-confidence. Well, those are the two things that we have.
Building Self-Confidence Behind Bars
Speaker 3An expectation that they gain here at Ingram is that they come here kept right. It may be different than what you and I have an opportunity to in our own private bathrooms, but we expect them to come here clean, come here with their shirt, tails in and looking decent. It may be the same uniform that everyone else has on here as a student, but they're there to be kept clean and seeing that transformation, that, even though you're in prison and you made a mistake. That doesn't make you a mistake and we're beginning to change you to be a better citizen, building a responsible citizen, not just someone that takes from the state right, but somebody that gives back to the state, pays that civic rent even when you're getting out. So that makes me smile. You know, going to the lake and enjoying personally and enjoying the outside lake life makes me smile yeah, lake life makes me smile.
Speaker 2but you know, I like what you just said there about the message of of you are not a mistake. Isn't that a message that society is trying really hard to combat? Yes, it just seems like you're not worthy or you are a mistake. It's just a message that is just so prevalently out there, so that doesn't change, even when there's a fence.
Speaker 3It doesn't change when there's a fence, it doesn't change, and we really work hard to make sure that they, that our students, have an expectation of learning that self-confidence, because they feel like it's been if they had it. It's been taken away and it's hard. I don't want to not be honest. It's hard inside of a prison in Alabama, right Women's prison or men's prison. It's hard. But even though you may have been taken down to your lowest level while you're here, it's all of our responsibilities here at Ingram to rehabilitate that and to get each person to the place where they need. They understand and want to be that responsible citizen, or yet, or if not, they're going to come back, Right, and so I tell them all the time I want to see you again. I just don't want to see you in khaki.
Speaker 3Alabama's Department of Corrections uniforms are khaki, and so I want them to come back in street clothes and talk to our students about the successes that they've had. So we have job placement coordinators that work throughout the state with employers to help them get jobs and place them in jobs. They may be released from prison today and we've got them set up for an interview tomorrow and we show them what to wear. We help them get the clothes that they need. We help them with their resumes and their interview skills and we're interviewing them before they go out and then know they're to know who they're going to go see the next day. And sometimes we go with them to that interview, not inside the interview, obviously, but making sure that they get there and making sure that they've they've shown up with with the clothes that they need to or whatever.
Speaker 3So I just think, just helping them recognize that they're, that we all make mistakes. Some are different than others, right, but no one on earth is here without having made a mistake, and some of us were caught making those mistakes and some of those were not caught right. But you're where you are. The only thing you can change now is your future is going forward, and so we really try to focus on that. We pour into our faculty and staff, with professional development coaches coming in. We have career coaches on staff just to help all of them pour into others and each other. How important it is Because even as employees, we make mistakes right. So to be fair with each other, have grace with each other and then hopefully, you know, doing helping someone else eventually helps ourselves too.
Speaker 2Yeah, trying to figure out who you are along the way. So, annette, have you always been confident yourself.
Speaker 3Yeah, I don't know. You know I'm not as confident I would say in other environments. I have been doing this type of public administration for so long that I feel confident in what I'm doing. So long that I feel confident in what I'm doing. But if I were in the art world, for example, I am not creative at all, so I would not be confident there, right? So I think it's all in the perspective of where you are and and what you're doing.
Speaker 3And certainly in my quietest moments I second guess myself. I second guess the words that I may have said to someone today. Or was I positive enough and did I have enough grace? I want people to have grace with me, but did I have grace with them? So I don't think so. Especially being from a small rural town or small rural community it wasn't a town I felt very self-confident. So I'm not self-confident about you know that where I come from. But now I'm proud to have gone to Winterboro High School and in Alpine, alabama, and be a community college president that has learned that life is about your community. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Wow, well, and to go back, I mean and I mean your, your parents, probably to see that you not only graduated but you went beyond, and then, you know, coming back in to giving into that system, that that's probably pretty impressive for them.
Speaker 3They passed away. Right. They didn't see me in this role, and so I think that they would be very proud, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, I would think they would be so when's the last time you found yourself crying?
Speaker 3Probably last week we had a well, I know it was last week we had an employee here at Ingram who we were blessed to give an opportunity to her and she had found herself homeless and in a in the Salvation Army housing in Montgomery and had been without a job for about seven years.
Personal Reflections and Finding Purpose
Speaker 3She was very qualified in higher ed but we had been without a job, and so about three years ago here at Ingram we had an opportunity to hire her and she is very successful, has her own home now, and this past week she was recognized by Hope Inspired Ministries in Montgomery for having once gone through Hope Inspired Ministries and living at the Salvation Army and as the Salvation Army home as a success story. And I told my husband when I got home from the dinner after she gave her wonderful speech that she had everyone in the room crying and even I cried and he's like, wow, but to be we couldn't be more proud of her and the opportunity that we have here to make a difference in her life but, more importantly, the difference that she's made in ours. And so that was the last time I cried and so that was the last time I cried.
Speaker 2So sweet tears. Well, I was going to follow up with the question of you know, rich can mean so many different things to people and I was going to say in what way do you feel rich? But I bet I can answer that Absolutely.
Speaker 3Absolutely. It is about the students and the faculty that we, that we serve and to see them grow. When I left that dinner, I was so thankful and I often take it for granted, I often take it for granted but I am so thankful to have the opportunity to help other people and I know those are words, but that's true. You know, I don't want for anything, I don't need anything. You know I'm provided, you know, with wonderful opportunities in that way. So I really I mean you know I'm not wealthy, I don't mean that in that sense at all. I'm just saying that you know, if I want something, I have the ability to get. I don't want a lot, but I have the ability to get that. I have the ability to get. I don't want a lot, but I have the ability to get that. But helping others and having this opportunity to provide a pathway for someone to no longer have to be homeless is the blessing is mine.
Speaker 2Yeah, I can see that and feel that. So there are so many aspects of your life that are just giving. How do you make sure that you're poured into enough? Or is it just the reciprocal of the minute you give you're getting full, so is it just kind of flowing that way? But how do you make sure you've got what it takes to give?
Speaker 3Well, I'm tired. You know a lot and recognize that there is a lot that I do give. I will say it's a very. These positions are very lonely in that way. You know, ingram's a very rural, rural community, because there's no. All the prisons are in very rural places and so there's no one that I can go have lunch with. That that is similar, right, I'm around all of our employees, and so I do try to choose friends that are that are close, um, that I can rely on and and um being intentional about calling them and talking to them. Um, it is. It is difficult, though.
Speaker 2Yeah Well, it's lonely in leadership roles anyway, because very few people have the same responsibilities that you do. But so are you a self-talker? Do you talk to yourself enough to pull yourself up when you're having a rough day?
Speaker 3I think so, I think so, I think so and I have, like I said earlier, quotes that I read, cards that I pull out, things on my phone that I go back to versus that say the next right step, right, the next right decision is what's important. Don't get, don't get brought down into into a world that you know your mind starts saying those crazy things to you, but it is. It is difficult sometimes, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, I can see that. So if you shout about something very loud and it be what everybody hears and it's Annette's message what would you say?
Speaker 3And my message would be. I think my message would be just because you made a mistake, doesn't make you a mistake. That would be my message, because all of us make mistakes and, like I said earlier, sometimes I will be awake at night and I will think of I wish I had not said that that way, right, because I said earlier, I'm a very honest person and sometimes that's a strength and sometimes that's a weakness, you know very truthfully. And so sometimes I will have said it very honestly and I will say oh, that was a really big mistake, right, and I shouldn't have said it that way. So I just think, if we could all lay down our phones, turn off our televisions from all this election advertisements and text and Democrats calling Republicans this, and.
Speaker 3Republicans calling Democrats this, and if we could take all of that away and say we're not, we're not mistakes, right, all these name calling. Let's stop it all and just realize that if we just had grace with one another, we'd be be would would all be a better society.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think, I think. So what's the biggest thing that you fear? Is there something, personally or professionally, that you just that's a fear that pops up for you.
Final Thoughts and Superpower Wishes
Speaker 3I think pops up for you. I think I think my fear would be feeling not like I wasn't needed. Yeah, yeah, because I, I feel like I, I think that I feel like I'm 100% needed, you know, for Ingram and for what we do. And then what do you do when you're no longer doing that? You know, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, you know a lot of people when they retire, that's their biggest problem is like now, what do I do? And now, who am I Right?
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, and you do that fulfillment. I wish I could be better about having a life outside of here and not just this being my identity, right? So that's my goals now, as I've reached 26 years of doing this. You know, being in public service, right. Creating a life where this isn't my identity. You know being in public service, right, well, creating a life where, where this isn't my identity, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's tough. That's tough. Tom has that. His identity is so tied into his service and everything he's doing. So what would you say is the biggest waste of time for you?
Speaker 3well, I will say I only have just a few more minutes, so I'll answer this and then this will be need to be my last one. My last one, um, a biggest waste of time. Yeah, I don't know. Uh, I guess my, my, the correct answer would be social media, right, or looking on social media. Although I don't do that a lot, you know, I try to be in, you know, intentionally. Just give myself 15 minute increments of doing that, but I guess, of all the things you know, that is the biggest waste of time. Yeah, I should be exercising instead of doing social media.
Speaker 2Yeah, I can relate to that. Well, let's wrap up, Annette. If somebody wanted to get in touch, if they wanted to find out more, how do they get in contact with you?
Speaker 3Well, they can go to our website, wwwistcedu, and then our information is there and my contact information is there too.
Speaker 2Yeah, okay. And I have one more question, and it's a quick one of if you had a superpower, you do anything. It could be any superpower. You could do anything that you want to with it for 24 hours, personally and professionally. What superpower would you choose, what would you do and why would you have chosen it?
Speaker 3um, I think that I would, um, hmm, I think that I would. I don't, I don't even know, but the thing that comes to my mind is that I wished that I could, you know, I could heal the sick and specifically children, could heal the sick and specifically children. You know, it just breaks my heart to see, you know, children with cancer, children with disabilities, that cannot enjoy you know, the life that most children can do run and play and jump and on a day like Halloween, that's the first thing that comes to my mind is that they would not be able to participate the same way that a lot of children do. So if I had a superpower, it would be to heal the children.
Speaker 2I like that, annette. Thank you, it has been a fabulous conversation.
Speaker 3Thank you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4To my own song.
Speaker 2Find Stacked Keys Podcast on Spotify, soundcloud and iTunes or anywhere you get your favorite podcast listened, you'll laugh out loud, you'll cry a little, you'll find yourself encouraged. Join us for casual conversation that leads itself, based on where we take it from family to philosophy, to work to meal prep, to beautifully surviving life. And hey, if I could ask a big favor of you, go to iTunes and give us a five rating. The more people who rate us, the more we get this podcast out there. Thanks, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4I'm gonna stomp to my own drum, stomp to my own song. Thanks, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1I'm gonna sing it out loud and say it real proud. Nobody's gonna step on my cloud Cause I stomp, stomp to the beat of my big drum. I got a big drum. Whatever you do, it ain't nothing on me, cause I'm doing my thing and I got the key To all my wants and all my dreams. Yeah, Cause.
Speaker 4I stomp to my own. I Stomp to my own drum, stomp to my own song. Stomp, hey Gonna, put on my boots and move, stomp to my own drum, thank you.