Summary Of Hopwood

Hopwood comes from a small Nebraska town. His parents started a local church. Hopwood was a basketball star from his school and town. He served in the Navy. When he returned home, his friends and him had a “great idea” to become rich by robbing banks. His friends and him ended up robbing five small town banks in Nebraska. Hopwood was twenty-three years old and would have to face potentially eleven years in Illinois’s federal prison. At this point, Shon was hopeless and thought he ruined his life. He had disappointed himself, his family, and his friends. When Hopwood arrived at Pekin, he wasn’t sure which prison group he would fit in with. He tried to prove his basketball skills to the other guys that were playing. He soon gained respect from them.

He received many letters from people back at home, including: his mother, family doctor, and Anne Marie (the cutest girl in David City). Shon decided to pursue a job if he was going to be there for breaking the law anyway. Shon got a job in the law library where he started to read appeals and rewrite them. He did this because he wanted to help people to appeal when their time came and he had become very fond of the law. The first person he helped was his friend John Fellers. Then Hopwood started receiving more appeals in the mail because people wanted him to help them out on their cases. Soon when Shon was done working on the appeals he would send them off to get help from the bigger law firms. Shon always wrote to Ann Marie, who he thought he would never get a chance to talk to her and who wouldn’t even notice