Where Are They Now? Shane Adams

Whether it’s the chaos of working in corrections — he spent much of career as an officer in maximum security prisons — or simply navigating the twists and turns of life, Dublin graduate Shane Adams has always thrived on unpredictability. Now, he’s enjoying a peaceful retirement, but keeps life interesting through volunteering in his community.

Adams graduated from Dublin High School in 1988, and went to Howard Payne to play football and study sociology. He left after three semesters to join the military, but when that didn’t work out, he decided to start working full time.

Adams continued to play football after leaving college, joining a semi-pro league and traveling around the country with his team. One of his friends from the team worked as a corrections officer in Amarillo, and suggested that Adams should apply.

He did, and got a job working alongside his friend as a correctional officer in the psychiatric ward of a maximum security prison in Amarillo. He stayed there for three years, then moved to a facility in Abilene for four more years.

Next, Adams took a break from working in corrections to take a job building communications towers. His company worked all over the US, and ended up sending Adams to Chicago, IL to build towers there. Adams worked with a team to assemble and send up materials to the climbers, and would sometimes climb them himself. “The view from the towers was amazing,” he said.

The company he worked for closed down around 2000, but Adams wasn’t ready to move back to Texas. He’d gotten married and started a family in Illinois, and so he decided to stay and get back into working in corrections.

He found a job at a Dwight Correctional Center, a women’s maximum security prison in Dwight, IL, worked there for ten years, and then transferred to Pontiac Men’s Prison.

Working in the prisons was an unpredictable job, but that’s what Adams enjoyed about it. “You might be working with new inmates from the county jail, or inmates in the psych ward, or just regular inmates,” he said.

The work was not easy, of course. Adams learned to lean on his coworkers for support when he needed it. “You come away with this camaraderie,” he said. “There’s so many people who don’t like you, but then you’re working with your staff, and other people you work with, and that’s what really gets you through every day.”

He worked at maximum security prisons in Illinois for 16 years before finally retiring in 2016.

Since leaving the job, Adams has enjoyed the peace and quiet, but sometimes finds himself missing the camaraderie he had at work. “When you’re there, you can’t wait to get out of there and go home, but then when you get out, you miss it,” he said.

When he retired, Adams was single again and his children were going off to college. “I decided to come back to Texas where I belong,” he said.

Adams now lives north of Austin in a town called Jarrell. He is engaged to a woman named Tammy Clawson, who he met at a football game when Dublin played Jarrell a few years ago.

He works part-time in medical transport, giving people rides to doctor’s appointments. Business has slowed down since COVID, though, and Adams has invested more of his time in community work.

He helps with the local booster club in Jarrell, and has been an active volunteer with the Special Olympics. “Working with people with disabilities and the disenfranchised, that’s what gets me up in the morning,” he said.

In the future, Adams is hoping to go back to school and finish his degree, so he can become more involved with his first passion: football. “I would love to try to coach, and get back into athletics and sports,” he said. “I really enjoy football; my sons are playing football, and I coached them when they were little. We’d always have a good time. People say I’m really loud and can get people motivated.”

Adams’ two older sons Jake, 22, and Josh, 21, are both going to college and in the National Guard. His youngest, Nate, is 16 and still in high school in Illinois. His father, Ben Adams, now lives in Uvalde, TX, where he runs a hot sauce business.

Throughout his life, Adams has drawn inspiration from his faith. He attends a cowboy church in Jarrell. “There have been so many miracles in my life,” he said. “Jesus has a plan for me. I don’t know what it is, but I believe.”

Adams also find inspiration in the kindness of people in his community. In 2016, right after he moved back to Texas, an accident caused Adams to lose his right leg, and he had no insurance at the time. He was able to get through it with help from people around him. “It’s been a crazy thing to just see the kindness of people in this world right now,” he said. “Everything is so backwards, and you’re told to hate, and you’re told all these things on TV and whatnot, and then you walk out every day and you see people from all walks of life [being kind]. It’s restored my faith in humanity.”

Adams’ advice to Dublin graduates is to go with the flow, because the one constant of life is its unpredictability. “Don’t give up,” he said. No matter where you think you are, or where you think you’re going, just smile and enjoy that journey, because it’ll never go the way you plan it.”

Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen. com.