Florence woman writes about her experiences as a corrections officer
by Mark Cowling | Florence Reminder & Blade Tribune
Toward the end of her career in corrections, a prison inmate was fishing for Mary June Podraza’s relationship status. “What do we call you? Miss? Mrs.?” He asked.
She shut down the questioning with a simple reply, “They call me CO.” It’s now the title of her book about her 10 years as a correctional officer. The first-time author, a 13-year Florence resident, was planning to have a local book-signing before public events were canceled in response to the pandemic.
She wrote under the pen name Marion Pruitt. Pruitt was the last name of her late uncle, a Chicago policeman. “I loved him, I understood him,” Podraza told Pinal Central.
