A Bed & Breakfast just for the Disabled: The Harmony House

by Colonel R. E. Jackson
(Cincinnati, Ohio)

In House Hospital Room

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Cincinnati.Com » News
Last Updated: 9:49 am | Tuesday, December 29, 2009

From Robber to Cop - to Award
By Cindy Kranz • ckranz@enquirer.com • December 29, 2009

At 16, Rodney Jackson and three of his friends held up a store clerk at gunpoint.

When police arrested them, Jackson was beaten by an officer. Sitting in jail, Jackson broke a piece of metal off his bed. He tried to kill himself by slitting his wrists, but the metal was too dull. So, he made a pact with God.

"I said, 'God, if you get me out of this, I'm yours for the rest of my life."'

True to his word, today he's Colonel Rodney Jackson, a retired police officer and firefighter.

Earlier this month, the 51-year-old Sharonville man received a 2009 Great Oaks Distinguished Alumni Award. Great Oaks is one of the largest career technical school districts in the United States and serves 36 school districts in southwest Ohio

It's been a storied journey from bad boy to police officer to advocate for people with disabilities.

Now, Jackson faces another battle. He was diagnosed about three months ago with prostate cancer. Because of other health conditions, treatment is out of the question.

Yet, he carries on, helping others from a computer at his bedside.

Jackson was a Sycamore High School sophomore when he convinced three classmates to rob a bank.

The night before, they broke into a house and stole guns. They borrowed another student's yellow Volkswagen - not the most subtle getaway car. They targeted Warren County, largely rural at that time.

The group first tried to hold up a feed store, but the owner had a gun of his own. Next stop was a bank, which was inexplicably crowded that morning, so they chickened out.

They landed at a country store, where Jackson ordered the clerk to get money out of the cash register. "I doubt it was even $100," he said.

As they headed down Montgomery Road back to school, they met a police officer who did a U-turn. Jackson said the officer beat and kicked him to a bloody mess.

A judge later asked him what he wanted to do with his life.

"I said, 'We need to have police officers with heart,''' Jackson said, promising to become one of them.

The judge gave him two years' probation, but he stayed clean and was off probation in six months. His juvenile record was expunged.

In his junior year, Jackson enrolled in the two-year law enforcement program at Great Oaks. Given his past, it was a battle getting enrolled and earning the trust of his instructor, a retired chief deputy sheriff, but he successfully overcame those hurdles

"I went to school every day and did what was right," Jackson said.

Jackson completed the program and earned his diploma in 1977. He later returned to Great Oaks and graduated from its police academy in 1985.

He's worked as a police officer for Lincoln Heights, Morrow, Maineville and the Pauline Warfield Lewis Center, a state hospital in Roselawn; a park ranger for Anderson Park District; a firefighter for Independence, Ky., and Blue Ash; and a member of Lincoln Heights life squad.

Jackson suffered a heart attack in his police cruiser in 1990 while working at Maineville. A series of strokes followed. He retired in 1995.

While battling a series of health problems, including heart and lung disease, he's also become an advocate for people with disabilities. He just completed his second term on the Governor's Council on People with Disabilities. Among the issues he's tackled is helping people across the country battle discrimination because of their service dogs.

In a letter supporting Jackson's nomination for the Great Oaks award, Dan Gettelfinger, who has been Jackson's personal care attendant for several years, wrote about watching him repeatedly get out of his hospital bed and travel across the United States to help strangers for free.

"From taking him to make his rounds at the nursing homes as an ombudsman to watching his home being invaded by strangers seven days a week, all asking for help, was beyond mind boggling," the Finneytown man wrote.

Jackson hopes to open "The Harmony House," a bed and breakfast in Williamsburg, for people with disabilities. He also wants it to be a place where children with and without disabilities could come to learn more about disabilities. "I found that I have a knack for helping people." Jackson said. "I still do. That's why I'm not too interested in calling it quits."