Joan and Bob Hatrak
Joan and Bob Hatrak are recent residents in the Russellville family of no-longer-young citizens and in addition to being a very nice couple, they have a terrific backstory. One of these days you will be able to read all about it in a book the two of them are writing. They have a publisher and when it comes out it is going to get a lot of attention.
Between 1973 and 1979 Bob Hatrak was Superintendent (Warden) of the high security Rahway State Prison in Trenton, New Jersey. Two years prior to Hatrak’s arrival the convicts rioted causing horrific damage to the prison and almost killing its then warden. Violence continued to be an issue as Bob Hatrak was sent in to clean it up. The book will be the story of that restoration of order and the national attention it brought to that troubled institution.
At the time he became chief executive of Rahway he was the youngest prison warden in the nation and that complicated his mission as he introduced creative new programs that were not admired by many of the old boy administrators in other prisons. Prophets of change are not universally loved
Bob’s a big guy, hard to miss (somewhere up his family’s genetic stream a grizzly bear might have been involved), and Joan the writer is alway by his side, ready to catch any slips in Bob’s memory. If you see them in the dining room, go over and say hello. They are a welcome addition to our small village of former lives.
