The Blair County Prison Re-entry Coalition has had former inmates speak at its meetings, but none of them ever stuck with the group long-term.

Coalition Director Ken Dean hopes Mike Fry will be different, after Fry spoke recently at a coalition meeting about his years of lawbreaking, stints in prison and his renouncing of that way of life two decades ago, which brought a different set of challenges, coupled with the rewards of normalcy previously unattainable for him.

During the several years of its existence, the coalition has struggled to gain traction in an attempt to improve the odds of success in society for individuals leaving Blair County Prison, but having someone who’s actually experienced that success to advise the coalition on strategy, while also mentoring others newly released from prison, could uplift the entire enterprise, according to Dean.

Fry first came to Altoona in 2002, arriving on a Greyhound bus at 8 p.m. with $30 in his pocket and a garbage bag with some belongings on his shoulder — on the lam from charges in his native Reading, having “ripped and run” after six officers showed up at his apartment there, he told coalition members.

Fry crossed the tracks from downtown to Station Medical Center, where almost everything was closed, asked someone where “the highway” was, then walked up 17th Street to Pleasant Valley Boulevard, where someone gave him a ride to the Meadows intersection, and he called a girl he knew, who suggested he ask someone for help.

At the nearby Sheetz, he spoke to a girl who took him to her house in Pleasant Village, let him stay the night, then took him next day to the Salvation Army rehabilitation center, where he enrolled — although after 30 days, his chippy attitude got him thrown out, he said.

So he applied for jobs, lying on his resume, given that he had no prior local jobs to recommend him, and got work at a restaurant near Walmart, along with a room to rent on the 2000 block Seventh Avenue for $40 a month.

He walked to work every day.

It took a year for him to figure out how to execute the reform he was trying to make.

“I did what I had to do to get by,” Fry said, noting that survival skills he’d learned during a career outside the law proved useful when trying to make a life within the law.

He moved from the restaurant to an auto body shop, where he made enough to pay his rent, then to construction work — a good job in a field that’s easy to enter, he said.

He became a foreman.

There were fly-by-night places that didn’t provide a good environment, then a roofing job for a company whose owner he’s still friends with.

For three years here, he stayed “under the radar,” earning his pay under the table, while also becoming acquainted with people in “the recovery field,” he said.

He worked as a counselor for a drug rehabilitation facility.

One day before Christmas 2005, he got pulled over while driving, and an officer called up his felony fugitive warrant from Berks County.

Before a judge there, Fry had a single significant question: What can I do to avoid going to prison, he said.

In addition to the Berks warrant, he had charges in multiple counties and New Jersey, he said.

The owner of the auto body shop came to his hearing in support.

The three years of living within the law here convinced the judge to release him on his own recognizance, which was amazing in itself, while ordering house arrest as part of a county-level sentence, instead of the three- to six-years or even five- to 10-years his charges probably merited, he said.

“It worked out,” he said. “Because I had changed.”

Smoking pot at 8

Growing up in Reading, he started smoking marijuana at the age of 8, he said.

He began selling marijuana on street corners at age 10 or 11, under the guidance of dealers who took advantage of the law going easier on kids, he said.

His role models drove Rivieras, wore velour suits and carried big rolls of cash.

He was small and made it a point to be the aggressor when confrontation threatened.

His first time in prison was in Asbury Park, N.J., after being stopped with four grams of cocaine and a loaded .45.

It was the kind of place where his intention that first night was not to go to sleep.

He served time at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas and at SCI Graterford, where the first sight of the inside of that notorious prison prompted him to ask himself what he’d done to get to “this point in life,” he said.

He quickly felt better when, walking past a cellblock, a prior acquaintance called out, “Yo, Fry!” he said.

‘A constant journey’

Since the Berks County judge’s reprieve, Fry has worked for one of the largest companies in the Altoona region, rising in that firm’s construction division to positions of significant responsibility, then branching off of that to another firm with connections to the large company.

That last move was in place of an offer from the big company that would have kept him on the road and far away almost constantly, and he was primed to accept it, given his feeling that work is what defines him.

But he’s married now to Malissa Yon — now Yon-Fry — with whom he had some prior family connections, and he has a stepson, and the offered move would have broken both their hearts, he said.

So he backed away and took the smaller job that allows him to have life-work balance.

He’s currently in “the best part of my life,” said Fry, 53.

“I’m proud of him,” Yon-Fry said.

Even after he entered the path of reform, Fry has had temptations and detours.

His first day in Altoona, he considered selling a bus ticket in his pocket to get high.

His first 60 days clean, he celebrated by using coke, he said.

It’s been “a constant journey,” he told the coalition. “There’s no finish line.”

He wishes that when he’d gotten out of jail and was ready to move beyond criminality, he’d had a mentor, someone who was “where I am now,” who could have pointed out the struggles ahead, he told the coalition.

Those struggles include dealing with his own response to perceived disrespect.

He learned the applicable lessons the hard way, he said.

He has tried to share those lessons by speaking at schools, churches and a church camp, he said.

The lessons include avoiding pitfalls like the temptation to cast blame on others and the urge to reject help, he said.

They include embracing humility and accepting “where you are as a person,” he said.

He knows that sometimes, someone who’s lived outside the law for a long time may not be ready to reform, yet nevertheless may be influenced for the better by “catalysts” that trigger a positive response later, he said.

He experienced such a catalyst once at the Salvation Army with a can of soda that happened to be sitting between him and an Army official, who asked how much additional soda he could put in the can.

The answer was none, because the can was full.

Fry himself was the can, and the only way he could accept the good advice that people like the Army official were trying to give him was for him to get rid of the problematic ideas that filled him, he said.

It was only later that he was ready for such good advice.

“I still do dumb things,” he said. “I’m still learning.”

“If someone walked in the path you did” outside the law, “would they be more likely to listen to you” than to coalition members who had no such experience, Dean asked.

“One hundred percent,” Fry said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.