MANY HONOR HER HANDIWORK.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

In the disciplinary unit at the Lane County Jail on Friday, Sister Margaret Graziano, 86, sat at a hard steel table with John Pennington, who - by his own admission - has been in and out of the place for half his life and can't remember the last time he had a visitor.

She gave him a smile and asked about his injured wrist. They chatted and she shook his hand before continuing her rounds - visiting inmates who asked that she bring them a Bible or drawing paper, or just sit with them to talk or to pray.

"Sometimes they're just nervous. They want to talk about their fears," says Graziano, who is a member of the Sisters of the Holy Names.

In 30 years of volunteering at the Lane County Jail, Graziano has quietly brightened the day of many an inmate.

But she has done much more. So much, in fact, that the American Correctional Association this year recognized her with the most prestigious national award in the corrections field - the E.R. Cass Award - in a ceremony in Nashville, Tenn., last month. In the 40-year history of the award, which recognizes dedication to the field of corrections, she is the first volunteer to receive it.

"It's kind of a humbling thing," Graziano says.

But well-deserved, says Kay Wood Bailey, a Delaware corrections administrator and secretary of the International Correctional Arts Network - a group Graziano helped found in 1989.

For years, Graziano has collected artworks of inmates, many who first learned their art in Graziano's art therapy class in Lane County, for display at national corrections conferences twice a year. She copies the artwork and sells it as postcards and calendars, with profits split between the inmate-artist and the art supply fund that provides supplies for inmate art students.

"She has definitely influenced corrections administrators and leaders who have attended these conferences and have seen these art displays," Bailey says. "She has built up quite a following."

Corrections officials nationwide have come to appreciate the value of inmate art therapy programs, such as the one Graziano established in Lane County soon after she began volunteering at the jail three decades ago, Bailey says.

"It really reduces stress, not just for inmates, but for staff. That really saves everybody," she says. "It gives them another way of looking at life and at themselves."

Graziano, the daughter of a Sicilian immigrant who established the widely recognized Graziano Produce Co. in Portland, says her interest in corrections grew from a teaching job she held at the MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility decades ago.

Later, while teaching at a Catholic school in Eugene, she walked by the Lane County Jail and began to wonder about the men and women inside. She asked for a tour, but was asked to volunteer before she ever got the tour, she says. One thing led to another.

Graziano started an art class for female inmates, who loved the break from boredom and the chance to get out and talk to one another.

The male inmates soon wanted a program. Graziano then started a leisure wellness class, in which inmates might imagine a trip they would take, talk about what they might see and do, discuss good nutrition and healthy lifestyles.

Over the years, Graziano volunteered in many official roles - mental health counselor, substance abuse counselor, assistant volunteer coordinator. But her informal role is always as the go-to volunteer.

"If there is ever an inmate request we don't know what to do with, it goes to Sister Margaret," says Richard Sherman, health services manager at the jail.

"She is always right there, willing to give, to help in any way."

Graziano's work really matters on the personal level, says Capt. John Clague, the jail manager who has known Graziano for 28 years.

"Margaret brings a sense of humanity to these people that they often would not get. She doesn't look at them as a criminal, but as a human being who still needs to find the goodness within them," Clague says. "She has dedicated her life to this."

At a time in life when most people hope to be retired, Graziano keeps putting in 40-hour weeks. But she takes care of herself, too. Balance is the key, she says. For recreation, she likes to drive her Geo to the countryside or to the coast.

Graziano, who rents a modest apartment in south Eugene, gets by on a monthly Social Security check she earned through years of teaching - a reprieve from her vow of poverty that her superiors granted her when she turned 80.

"I sleep when I'm sleepy. I eat when I'm hungry. I meditate. I pray a lot," she says. "I try to leave all that back there at night. I can't take it home with me because there's too much. There are days you can do it better than others.

"I know this much: you have to treat everybody with dignity," she says. "It's not important for me to know why they are there. The important thing is to believe some of them can change. I really believe some can change. I believe that's why I stay."

CAPTION(S):

In three decades of service at the jail, the nun has volunteered in many official roles.