You'Re Going to Boarding School

Jody was born in Bakersfi eld, California, in 1949 and was raised on acottonfarm near Shafter. While in grade school, he learned to work in the fi eldsalongside Mexican farmworkers, hoeing weeds, irrigating, driving tractors,and picking cotton by hand. During high school, he attended a boardingschool named Ozark Academy in Gentry, Arkansas, from 1963 to 1967. While there, he worked twenty hours a week at a cabinet shop, earningenough money to pay his own tuition. At Bakersfi eld Junior College, heearned an AA degree in horticulture (plant science) while working parttimeat a cabinet shop. While raising a family of four children at the ageof twenty-four, he started his own cabinet shop in Atascadero, California,building custom cabinets all over San Luis Obispo County. At twenty-fi ve,he got his general contractors license, sold the cabinet shop, and beganbuilding new homes and contracting fi nish carpentry. In 1980, he movedback to Bakersfi eld to work for ten years as a Building Inspector and CodeEnforcement Offi cer in Kern County at Bakersfi eld, Taft, and CaliforniaCity. He trained his three sons in construction and helped send his daughterto San Diego State University. After serving a term on the 2010 MaderaCounty Grand Jury, he is now a single retired grandfather of four, living inOakhurst, California, near Yosemite National Park