For nearly a quarter of a century, Jerry Pounds was a kindly, unflappable vocational instructor teaching automotive and air-conditioning repair skills at federal prisons in Atlanta and Tallahassee, Fla.
“Jerry treated inmates with dignity and respect, and they took a liking to him,” said his wife of 52 years, Paula Pounds. “When some Atlanta prisoners who were Mafioso from New York City heard he was going there to run in a marathon, they gave him names of great restaurants and told him to mention their names and he would be treated royally.”
It was an offer he politely declined, she said.
Similarly, she added, Mr. Pounds got on well with Cuban detainees at the Atlanta penitentiary despite a language barrier. “Jerry found a way to communicate with them, and they let him know he was their favorite on the prison staff,” she said.
It wasn’t uncommon for inmates to call Mr. Pounds after their release and express their appreciation of him, his wife said. In the mid-1970s one of them even wrote a letter to the editor of the Atlanta Journal complimenting Mr. Pounds, and it was published.
Mr. Pounds developed his automotive expertise as a teenager at his father’s Avondale Estates repair shop.
A longtime friend, Gary Schiedt of Stone Mountain, said when he was in the military and stationed in Huntsville, Ala., he would regularly drive his precious 1967 Pontiac Bonneville to Avondale Estates so Mr. Pounds could service it. “Jerry was such a talented mechanic that I wouldn’t let anyone else touch it,” he said.
As time went on, Mr. Pounds began conveying the knowledge he had gained to trainees sent by various technical schools to his father’s shop.
“Jerry was a patient instructor, and he enjoyed passing on what he knew, and he came to the realization he should make this his career,” said Mrs. Pounds.
For nearly 10 years Mr. Pounds taught auto repair at the Atlanta Area Technical School. In 1969 he took a position at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, where he taught repair and maintenance of air-conditioning units as well as cars. In 1981 he moved on to the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, where he taught until his retirement in1993.
Jerry Edmund Pounds, 75, died Thursday at his Stone Mountain residence due to complications of lung cancer. His memorial service is 3 p.m. Sunday at A.S. Turner & Sons funeral home. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations in his memory be made to the United Methodist Children's Home, 500 South Columbia Drive, Decatur, GA, 30030-4112.
When he returned to Atlanta in 1993, he managed the Pounds family’s residential and commercial properties, dealing with repair issues as well as collecting rents.
“Jerry could fix anything whether it was a water heater, a dishwasher or a commode,” Mrs. Pounds said. “He was so handy that I used to tell him that I’d let him remove my appendix if he had enough light.”
Mr. Pounds was a runner before long-distance running became the rage. He competed in 10-kilometer events around the Southeast, not to mention a dozen or more Peachtree Road Races, and in several longer races, including the New York City marathon.
His daughter, Kathleen Lauterbach of Atlanta, said he was advocate for fitness and his example influenced her to become an aerobics teacher.
He enjoyed trips abroad with his wife to Europe and the Mideast, especially to the sites of antiquity in Greece, Turkey and Egypt. And he was an avid reader of 19th and 20th Century history and biographies.
Also surviving are a son, Christopher Pounds of Avondale Estates and two granddaughters.
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