DEFIANCE, Ohio — A wrongfully convicted man from Defiance is using his experience in prison and sharing his story to help fathers who have been incarcerated get through their own lives after they get out.
"Finding myself back in a prison, having to start all over again, it was devastating," said Ron Tijerina, co-executive director of The Ridge Project. "Our world was just ripped from us."
Tijerina was convicted of a crime he didn't commit in 1991.
"It was by the grace of God that I got to wake up. I was able to learn and really fall in love with writing and reading," he said. "And through the journey, I was married five years prior to incarceration. I had two sons that were basically three and four when I went into prison."
He was initially released in 2001. However, a judge overturned his release six months later and Tijerina had just one week to turn himself in.
"The first thought in my mind was, I'm running, right? Vámonos pa' México," he said.
But Tijerina didn't run away. He turned himself back in and ended up serving nearly five more years until his release in 2006.
"That last week of being released from prison with my family was the longest week of my life, yet the fastest week of my life," he said.
Tijerina says he stayed strong in prison by relying on others and began to surround himself with people doing positive things to better themselves.
Now, he is using his experience in prison to teach men a way of living called Tyro Fit, which stands for Forever in Training.
"Because of that experience, we get to help people dream again," Tijerina said. "We get to teach people how to live a life, no matter what your experience is ... we tell them, look, there's life after penitentiary."
His advice and message to someone who is incarcerated is if you can understand that what is happening is an event, not a lifestyle, then there is growth and opportunity beyond the bars.
"There's an endless opportunity of success if you really come to understand the experience you're having and how to grow from it and learn from it and to never repeat that again," Tijerina said.