Counselor dedicated to helping others

What do you get when you grow up with an ex-convict as a dad, a grandmother who was a madam, and bootlegger for a grandfather? You inherit the criminal mind.

Sometimes, you end up as a counselor, like Jerry Price.

Price is a licensed professional counselor. Shortly after he and his twin brother were born, his father was shot evading police and landed himself in prison. Things changed for the better for the elder Price while he served his time, and he brought that change back to his family.

Jerry spent his growing-up years traveling with his dad as his dad met the incarcerated behind bars.

"I saw how my dad had really changed," states Price.

Having worked in the jail system, private practice, church ministry, university Master's programs, and now back to private practice, Price is able to focus his work just the way he wants to: affecting leaders.

"I like to pour my life into the diamond-in-the-rough, because it's that person who will impact so many generations," he said. "When I worked in the jails in

Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, I learned I had a criminal-thinking mind. It takes one to know one. It's not like I was planning crimes, but rather how to avoid responsibility, how to manipulate others and the situation. I noticed I had the same type of thinking as the guys behind bars I was trying to help."

While developing a program for the inmates on how to move from the mindset that got them there to a mindset that was no longer closed, the groundwork for his book, "Twisted Thinking Transformed," was laid.

The book was finished in 2003, just a few years after he met with Ken Ruettgers, a Green Bay Packers player who was struggling with the idea of transitioning from an active player to retirement. Shortly thereafter, more active NFL players started calling. Now he travels several times a month all over the country to meet with players from all fields.

Ruettgers, who now lives in Sisters, says "Jerry met me where I was - in the throes of a difficult transition - and gave me hope for the future."

Price turns his insight into helping people with troubled marriages.

"I met a pro football player in the Midwest," Price recalled. "In talking I asked him why he and his wife were there in my office. 'To be more married than yesterday,' the man said. You can't be more married until you're willing to go through the storm."

The storm is the tension we all try so hard to avoid, whatever causes distance in the relationship. According to Price's Web site, it's the "deep emptiness and rigid distance while remaining under clouds of despair."

Price and his wife, Judy, have been married 42 years, and they really believe that it's possible to have MORE - Marital Openness Routinely Experienced - because that's what they apply to their own relationship, and together they've seen many seemingly hopeless marriages restored.

The Prices offers MORE Married Weekends to assist those interested in reaching for the top in their relationship, where hope is infused into the marriage by reducing distance and moving the relationship towards genuine intimacy.

The next MORE Married Weekend is scheduled for May 1-3 here in Sisters. To sign up visit Price's Web site at http://www.moremarried.com.

Price meets with clients on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Visit http://www.jerryprice.net or call 678-2552.