When Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Miguel Ruiz, a gunnery sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, took his reserve unit to the USMC Logistics Base in Barstow for annual rifle training last year, he noticed that many of the range stools were in disrepair and others needed replacing. He contacted Sgt. Gerri McCorkle at the Pitchess Detention Center to see if the Sheriff’s Department could help.

McCorkle assigned inmate students in the jail’s vocational wood shop to build 80 new stools for the Marine Corps, using scrap wood donated by Paramount Studios to the Sheriff’s Department’s inmate vocational training programs.

As a Girl Scout Gold Award advisor, McCorkle arranged for Santa Clarita Valley Girl Scout Ashley Keith to paint and stencil the stools for her Girl Scout Gold Award project.

The vocational wood shop is one of many inmate vocational training programs offered by the Sheriff’s Department at the Pitchess Detention Center. Custody Assistant Paul Smith instructed the students in building the stools. Recently, LA Works, a Los Angeles County WorkSource Center (www.laworks.org), was contracted to provide California certified vocational workshop instructors for each of the vocational training programs. Custody Assistant Smith will continue to work with the new wood shop instructor to provide relevant workplace instruction to inmates.

The Girl Scout Gold Award is the highest award in Girl Scouting. It symbolizes outstanding accomplishments in the areas of leadership, community service, career planning and personal development. In earning the Gold Award, Ashley joins an elite group comprising only 5.4 percent of the eligible Girl Scouts who gain this achievement.

LASD Deputy Miguel Ruiz is one of almost 800 members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department who serves in the United States Reserve forces. He is currently assigned to the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station.

USMC representatives will be at the Pitchess Detention Center on Wednesday to pick up the new rifle range stools.