Ruth Graham & Friends Set Fall Date For

Get Growing Conference at Louisiana's Angola Prison

Contacts:           Tex Reardon                                 Doug Hovelson            

                          Ruth Graham & Friends              Big Thunder                   

                          651-261-1964                                612-722-5501                 

                          treardonjr@comcast.net           dhovelson@bigthunderpr.com

MINNEAPOLIS – (March 25, 2009) Ruth Graham & Friends (RGF) are sending themselves to prison in 2009.

              RGF will present its Get Growing conference at the Louisiana State Penitentiary (LSP) in Angola, LA on Sept. 18-19. The conference will be presented at the prison’s 2,800-seat Third Chapel – the largest facility of its kind in the country.

              LSP Warden Burl Cain issued the invitation to RGF to present a special Get Growing conference for the benefit of the inmate population – numbering more than 5,000 – as part of the prison’s ongoing goal of providing opportunities for inmates to participate in faith based programs that promote moral rehabilitation.

              “We’ve never produced a conference at a prison before,” says Ruth Graham, RGF founder and conference leader. “All of us on the RGF Get Growing team are looking forward to this experience with great enthusiasm.

              “Part of our message is that spiritual and personal growth is possible for everyone, no matter what their personal life circumstances,” says Graham. “We understand that we are all fallible individuals – all of the speakers involved with the conference, myself included, have dealt with the same problems that we discuss in our workshops – and that we are all sinners saved by grace.”

              Through a variety of workshops led by highly respected expert speakers, the RGF conferences provide people with the means for better understanding how to overcome life-controlling issues such as anger, abuse, depression, addiction, controlling behavior, pornography addiction and more.

              Tex Reardon, executive director of the RGF ministry, believes there are many at Angola who will be receptive to the message of spiritual encouragement that is at the core of the RGF mission. “As one who has visited Angola before, and met with some of the prisoners there, I am confident that the Ruth Graham ministry, with its emphasis on working with those who are truly hurting, will be of great assistance to many inmates.”

              The Graham family name is well-known at Angola, where one of the prison chapels is named in honor of the memory of Ruth’s late mother, also named Ruth Graham.

LSP is recognized throughout the country for emerging from its 1970's reputation as the “bloodiest prison in America” to today being one of the most secure, humane, and efficiently run prisons in the country. 

Warden Cain credits this amazing transformation to moral rehabilitation programs, which include the Angola Extension of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, the only four-year college degree program where inmates can earn a degree from an accredited university, and the Inmate Missionary Program that provides inmate ministers throughout LSP and other Louisiana prisons.

 “Even if I were an atheist, I’d have a strong religious program in my prison.  Religious people do not normally commit murder, rob, or rape,” says Warden Cain.  There are approximately 3,000 inmates participating in moral rehabilitation programs at LSP.  These men strive for moral rehabilitation and it shows: Since 1995, inmate violence has steadily declined to an all-time low by year-end 2008.

The “Get Growing” conferences are held on average only six times per year, and this conference in Casper will be the only one conducted in the western U.S. in 2009. Ruth Graham, youngest daughter of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, founded Ruth Graham & Friends to help the church provide care for people experiencing life and its constant challenges.

Ruth Graham & Friends conferences have been attended by more than 9,500 people in more than 13 U.S. and Canadian locations. Also on the schedule for 2009 are conferences at Casper, WY, April 24-25; Logan County/Bellefontaine, OH, Oct. 23-24, and Wichita, KS., Nov. 6-7. For information on hosting a Ruth Graham & Friends conference in your community, call (877) 743-7884 or send an email to info@ruthgrahamandfriends.org.

# # #

Interested media are invited to attend.  For press passes or more information, members of the press may contact:

Angie Norwood: (225) 655-2897

E-mail: anorwood@corrections.state.la.us