Pellissippi State student receives scholarship from death row inmates

Sometimes compassion appears in unusual forms and springs from the most unlikely of sources.

Tammi Maranville, a student at Pellissippi State, recently found it in the form of a $1,500 scholarship. The source: a group of death row inmates.

In August, just two weeks before the fall semester was scheduled to begin, Maranville, a Maryville resident who attends the college’s Blount County Center, was fretting about the possibility that her financial situation might force her to withdraw from the upcoming term.

Then the phone rang.

At the other end was a representative from a newsletter entitled “Compassion,” written by prisoners from across the country who are awaiting execution. The proceeds from the publication, raised through subscriptions and donations, are put into a college scholarship fund for family members of murder victims.

Maranville’s 21-year-old sister was murdered in 1969.

The Pellissippi State student saw an ad for the Compassion scholarship and applied for it by relating her story. But a year had passed, so the caller’s message that she was the scholarship recipient came as quite a surprise.

“It was exactly the amount of money I needed,” she said. “It’s a God thing.”

The money came at just the right time, because Maranville did not want to interrupt an educational journey that took her a long time to begin.

“I drove by the school for 10 years wanting to do something with my life before I actually came in,” she said.

She enrolled at Pellissippi State in the fall of 2004. Among the many positive effects, her education here has even helped her sort through the complex emotions caused by her older sister’s violent death.

Just 7 when her sister died, Maranville says she spent most of her life repressing the memory.

“I didn’t talk about her murder for decades,” Maranville said, but she finally began to confront the anger she felt toward the convicted murderer as a result of class discussions and assignments.

For one essay in an English course, for example, Maranville chose to write about the horrific event and its effects on her own life. In the process of writing, she began to recognize her anger and grief.

“I didn’t realize I had all of this hatred inside me,” she said.

Attending a 12-step program also helped with the healing process, and during a trip to a convention in Memphis, she finally visited her sister’s grave with flowers and a letter addressed to her beloved older sibling.

There, she was able to begin feeling the need to forgive the killer and even to say a prayer for him.

“One of my last memories of my sister was her teaching me the 21st Psalm,” Maranville said. “I believe it was the night before she died.”

George Howard Putt was convicted in 1973 of killing Maranville’s sister and four others during a month-long murder spree. He is currently serving a 497-year sentence.

The first issue of “Compassion” was published in 2001, the effort of a group of death row inmates to “foster reconciliation between prisoners and the immediate family members of murdered victims.”

Now, with the Compassion scholarship, Maranville’s education can continue uninterrupted. And she is determined to make the most of it.

“I feel like I’m a sponge,” she said of her opportunity to attend college.

“The professors here are awesome. They are totally open and encouraging. Sometimes teachers who aren’t even my teachers have offered to help me. The other students offer, too.”

Maranville has also found her classes relevant to her own life.

Topics as varied as domestic violence, the war in Iraq, international travel and the plight of the poor have caught her interest.

“I feel like you learn ‘the truth’ in college,” she said. “It’s a world that’s always been there, and now I have access to it. I would like to encourage all people, regardless of age or circumstance, to be open to the wide range of educational opportunities here.”

Although she hasn’t chosen a major yet, Maranville does know it will be in a field like psychology or sociology.

“I want to help people,” she said, “but first I had to learn to help myself.”

Working through her anger and pain and then accepting the financial help of convicted murderers have been important steps in Maranville’s emotional and educational journey. She said the Compassion scholarship brought to mind a statement made by Nazi victim Anne Frank shortly before her death: “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

“I learned that at Pellissippi,” said Maranville.