The Governor has filled an important vacancy in state government. Governor Tom Vilsack has hired the director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections to serve as the head of Iowa’s prison system. The post’s been vacant since the day before Thanksgiving when Vilsack fired six agency directors to — in his words — start his second term with a clean slate. Gary Maynard, the new prison director, got his bachelors and masters degrees from colleges in Oklahoma, and he also served as a professor at the University of Oklahoma. Vilsack says he hired Maynard because he had experience at all levels of corrections work, from being a college professor to serving as a prison warden. Maynard was in the Oklahoma National Guard for 32 years and retired with the rank of Brigadier General.
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