Goodwill honors Tulsa woman for post-incarceration success

The smile that Connie Laney-Golden uses to greet each guest is born of the fact that they don't know the story behind it.

They're unaware of her troubled past, her incarcerations for drugs and gang activity.

The person working the front desk at the Best Western Plus near 31st Street and Memorial Drive in the evenings is who Laney-Golden fought to become, a person she never believed she could be.

And that's what makes her smile.

"Our past does not define us. I am somebody," she said. "I look at the guests and can help them because I am not who I once was."

Laney-Golden, originally from Wasilla, Alaska, moved in 2003 to Shawnee, where she described life as "pretty rough."

That description could fit most of her life.

She grew up in a home where drug use, mental illness and prison life were the norm.

The only photos she has of her mother and siblings are mugshots.

She has been incarcerated five times herself.

"It just becomes a family's way of life until someone stops it," she said. "I didn't know how to get out of the lifestyle. It's just what I knew. I never had anyone to show me a different way."

The "generational curse," as she describes it, came to a head when she was in prison at the same time as her daughter.

And around that time, Laney-Golden was introduced to a transition program designed to combat recidivism among women.

She was encouraged to put trust in the program and follow the steps, which would lead to her being able to change.

It took time, effort and lots of support from a number of agencies and partners, but Laney-Golden was able to learn the skills to leave her past life behind and start anew.

For her efforts, she has been named Goodwill Industries Achiever of the Year.

"I knew she had it in her. We just needed to lift her up and get her going so she could move forward," said Rose Watts, career navigator with Goodwill Tulsa Works Career Academy.

Laney-Golden was one of the first women chosen for a pilot program between Goodwill and Tulsa Reentry One Stop that provided her with job skills training, mentoring and confidence.

She was taught how to dress for employment and was provided with work-appropriate clothes.

And she was treated with kindness and respect for the first time in her life.

"I was told that I was somebody, that there was nothing I couldn't do, that I was smart, pretty, that I could do this," she said.

Laney-Golden, now four years sober, has been working at the same hotel for eight months.

She has also created a relationships with her children and grandchildren - she's known as Nano, because "Nana doesn't know how to say no."

She has paid off her first car, pays her bills and helps supervise a sober-living house.

"There's nothing I'm chasing except doing the next right thing and to make somebody smile or to laugh," she said.