From Crack to College
Jan. 11, 2009— -- A homeless, crack-addicted ex-convict typically doesn't make the ideal college student.
But when Delora Evans stopped using drugs for good, she became unshakably committed to college, with its hard work and rigorous schedule, so she could help others trying to beat their habit.
"I've been moving at this fast pace since I've been clean, and I didn't know how to do anything else," Evans said.
On Dec. 13, she graduated magna cum laude from the University of North Texas in Denton with a degree in rehabilitation studies.
Evans, 43, a mother of four, gets up at 4 a.m. to work as a drug counselor at Hutchins State Jail. She will begin pursuing her master's degree in January and said her long-term goal is to become a prison chaplain.
"Whenever I went to jail, I was always on my own. My family didn't support me," Evans said. "I only had the chaplains and the people I had in jail, so it just affected me and made me want to be a chaplain."
Such diligence and ambition are a stark contrast from where Evans was about 20 years ago.
Evans gave birth to her first son shortly before graduating from W.H. Adamson High School in Dallas in 1984. Two years later, her second son was born.
She smoked marijuana and started using a new drug, crack cocaine.
"Everybody looked at it as just another drug. Nobody knew the devastation that it held," she said.
In 1988, she was arrested for selling cocaine to an undercover Dallas police officer. When she violated her probation by not reporting to her probation officer, Evans was sent to prison for 21 months.
"My addiction didn't stop through the '90s. I was homeless. I was in jails. I was in rehab five times," she said.
In 1994, she gave birth to a daughter.
In May 2001, Evans checked into a rehabilitation program that would finally work for her: First Choice at the Salvation Army in Fort Worth.
This time, Evans was determined. Deborah Bullock, a staff member at the Salvation Army, could see the steely resolve that Evans put toward turning her life around.
