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Jail time spurred Central Medford grad to change his life Logan Carranza, 17, graduated from Central Medford High School after making up 15.5 credits while working full-time. [Mail Tribune / Jamie Lusch] Sunday Jun 4, 2017 at 2:00 AM Jun 5, 2017 at 6:55 AM Teresa Thomas Mail Tribune @teresathomas_MT After spending about two months in jail and last summer in a drug treatment program, Logan Carranza started his junior year at Central Medford High School with fewer than nine credits to his name. And in less than a year, he managed to earn the remaining 15.5 credits he needed to graduate a year early, while working full-time. Logan, 17, says staying busy is what has kept him out of trouble and away from drugs and bad friends this past year. Although born in Oregon, Logan spent the first five years of his life with his relatives and drug-addicted mom in Mexico before one of his many aunts in Woodburn took him back to the states with her. Logan lived with several aunts during his time in Woodburn. They would play hot potato with him, handing him off to the next relative when he started being obnoxious and “doing stupid things,” he says. In middle school, he started being more rebellious, and by his freshman year in high school, he was doing marijuana and hanging out with the wrong crowd. “At the beginning, I was a very good student, and from there I started f------ around and saw school as a big joke,” he says. When he came home drunk at the end of his freshman year, his aunt’s boyfriend kicked him out, and Logan couch-surfed for the next year of his life, staying with friends, siblings of friends and neighbors of friends until he wore out his welcome. “I tried my best, but high school was falling part,” he says. “It was too much stress. I had to wake up earlier to get to school because of where (my friend) lived. It used to be a 15-minute walk to school, and then it was an hour walk. I had to wake up at 6:30.” During this time, he purchased a fake ID and Social Security card for $40 and used it to get a job at Walmart. There were parties every weekend with his older friends, and “around that time I started using (hardcore) drugs, and I started going crazy.” “I totally forgot how I even started,” he says. But Logan can clearly remember moments where he felt overcome with shame about the direction of his life. One of those times was when a former soccer teammate ran into him at the skate park, where he was going to sleep, and invited him home. “(My friend’s mom) made us pancakes with milk. I hadn’t eaten, but I was so coked out I wasn’t even hungry. I remember she turned around and looked at me, and I started crying. She teared up, too. I didn’t want her to see me like this. I lived there for about a week.” Logan had friends, enemies, and friends with enemies. His life, he says, was rife with threats and fights and warnings from police officers who knew him by name. Then, one day in April last year, a fight at school landed him in jail. “That’s when I got arrested, got handcuffed,” he says. “They drove me to jail in Salem.” Fortunately, Logan had not used his brass knuckles, which were in his friend’s possession at the time, and avoided a nearly six-year prison sentence and Measure 11 assault charge. While in jail, one of the officers asked Logan what he wanted to be when he grew up. “I said, ‘A registered nurse,’ and he said, ‘Not with a felony you’re not,’” Logan says. “Those were his exact words.” Logan told his probation officer that if he was going to get his life back on track, then he couldn’t go back to his aunt’s house, back to Woodburn High School and back to his old friends. “I told him it would lead to me being back here (jail),” Logan says. As a kid, Logan had traveled to Medford to watch his cousin compete in a soccer tournament. He thought it was a nice place, so his probation officer enrolled him in a residential treatment program in Medford, which started June 13, 2016. He completed the program the first day of school, Sept. 7, and moved in with Gena Kesler, the guardian of his roommate in the program. He’s been living there ever since while attending Central Medford High School. “First of all, I had space, and second of all, it’s what I like to do to help these kids,” Kesler says. “My son, who was in OnTrack at the time, really liked him and thought he would fit in our household well.” Logan stayed at school every day until his shift at Wendy’s — later Burger King — started to avoid any social situations where he might be tempted to regress into his old ways. Principal Amy Herbst says he made up more than two years of work through online credit retrieval, online classes and passing proficiency tests. Despite his record, he had great attendance and no discipline referrals, Herbst says. “He was here every day doing what he was supposed to be doing,” she says. In January, Logan participated in some criminal activity, he says, but “got lucky” and was once again reminded of how precarious his situation was. “I wasn’t perfect all the way, but, since then I’ve been clean … and stayed focused on what I’m doing with my life,” he says. Logan plans to attend Rogue Community College this fall, courtesy of a federal grant, and hopes to earn an associate degree and then transfer to a university to pursue a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. “I want to become a homicide detective,” he says. “It doesn’t sound like a boring job. You’re doing something new every day and plus, I like mysteries." He later jokes, “If you can’t beat them, join them." Reach education reporter Teresa Thomas at 541-776-4497 or [email protected]. Follow her at www.twitter.com/teresathomas_mt.