With tattooed biceps flexing, state prison guards put their muscle to the test Tuesday as they competed in a tug-of-war designed to raise money for Special Olympics Maryland.
The event, which also featured an approximately 3-mile run around the House of Correction in Jessup, raised about $12,000 for the Special Olympics, said Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
The Annual Division of Correction Torch Run, Walk and Tug of War also raised $1,000 for the family of Jeffrey Wroten, 44, of Martinsburg, W.Va., an officer at the Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown who was killed in January. An inmate is accused of murdering Wroten in January.
Rod Sowers, the warden at Roxbury, accepted the check on behalf of Wroten?s five children.
“It?s been a difficult year before us in the prison system,” he said in an interview. “When you lose an officer, it takes its toll on everyone. The community has been great in giving us support.”
The Maryland Division of Correction has raised about $225,000 for Special Olympics Maryland since 1993, making the division the second-largest fundraiser in Maryland for the charity. The event raised money through T-shirt sales and entry fees for the tug-of-war and the run. About 84 correction officers from the Division of Correction and detention centers in Anne Arundel and St. Mary?s counties participated in the tug-of-war, along with about 100 walkers and runners.
Vernarelli said the event gives prison officers a chance to show themselves as positive contributors to the community.
“Correction officers, as a group, seldom get the credit they deserve for the good work they do, both in the prison and in the community,” he said. “It?s also a great morale builder for the officers.”
Gov. Robert Ehrlich, who attended the event, thanked the prison officers for their day-in, day-out work and the money they raised for the Special Olympics.
