What happen to Straight Inc. in St. Petersburg?

[Kenterprises]

Hi
Just a quick question, I was in Straight Inc. in St Pete. Fla in the year 1977-78 for a total of 6 months on 1st phase.LOL. they had told me just before I got myself kicked out on purpose! that I was the only person that was on 1st phase for 6 months.
The people names I remember are Mrs. Peterman who was like the head honcho there, some older Dude named Jim and Liz was another staff person. Does anybody remember the address in St Pete where this place was?or off of what hwy? We were always being filmed for the Phill Donahue show with our backs against the camera. what does old Phill think of this today I wonder? I did survive though Im 41 today happly married with 2 sons just awsome. No I did not stay straight when I left Straight but took me till I was 26 to figure out what they were trying to cram in my head. We did not eat only PBJ  we did have hot food alot of it was SOS, donated by all the parents of us kids that were there.Most of the time it was out of cans they would mix all together and a 1 plastic dixie cup of Kool-aid .Once in a while we would get treated to a coke.Yes we sat there in a plastic or metal chair for like 10-12 hours 7 days a week :sad: which I feel even today is way to long! there was 300 of us there I wonder today who realy made it? We should make a movie of this today!!! and what happened to us that survived and what we all are doing in our life today. We need to do this! Or it will just be swept under the rug like everything else! I am moving my family back down to Tampa soon and I wanted to ride by the Old Straight Bld. and reflect back to when I was there. I had a choice to either serve 5 years of Hard work and Labor or go to straight. I chose Straight and it was the longest 6 months of my life but non of the abuse happened that most of these other stories I have read.

[ramprato]

First off, welcome to this board,

Secondly to answer your main question, Straight finally closed down in 1993, but not without all the due abuse lawsuits that it deserved. It wouldn't be so bad if indeed Straight totally closed down, but the fact is, they opened up again using different names so they couldn't be sued. Since you were there in 1978, it expanded to around 10 other cities in the US only to injure the young minds of sooo many others like you.

Here are a couple of links to read up on the history of Straight before and after you were there:

http://fornits.com/straight/

http://fornits.com/anonanon/

So your moving to Tampa soon? Good for you, coincidentally, we are having our 2nd annual Straight survivors conference there on June 8th and 9th concerning treatment abuse put together by other survivors of Straight. Here is the link for that, I hope you can make it, we are starting to organize against these monsters who continue to support the mind raping of our young people.

http://trebach.org/abuse/

Take care..........Ken

[ladyjerrico]

Ken,
I didn't realize this was only the 2nd meeting.. I just thought there were more than that.. ??

[romulusmagnas]

On 2002-04-01 19:37:00, Kenterprises wrote:
Hi

Just a quick question, I was in Straight Inc. in St Pete. Fla in the year 1977-78 for a total of 6 months on 1st phase.LOL. they had told me just before I got myself kicked out on purpose! that I was the only person that was on 1st phase for 6 months.

The people names I remember are Mrs. Peterman who was like the head honcho there, some older Dude named Jim and Liz was another staff person. Does anybody remember the address in St Pete where this place was?or off of what hwy? We were always being filmed for the Phill Donahue show with our backs against the camera. what does old Phill think of this today I wonder? I did survive though Im 41 today happly married with 2 sons just awsome. No I did not stay straight when I left Straight but took me till I was 26 to figure out what they were trying to cram in my head. We did not eat only PBJ  we did have hot food alot of it was SOS, donated by all the parents of us kids that were there.Most of the time it was out of cans they would mix all together and a 1 plastic dixie cup of Kool-aid .Once in a while we would get treated to a coke.Yes we sat there in a plastic or metal chair for like 10-12 hours 7 days a week :sad: which I feel even today is way to long! there was 300 of us there I wonder today who realy made it? We should make a movie of this today!!! and what happened to us that survived and what we all are doing in our life today. We need to do this! Or it will just be swept under the rug like everything else! I am moving my family back down to Tampa soon and I wanted to ride by the Old Straight Bld. and reflect back to when I was there. I had a choice to either serve 5 years of Hard work and Labor or go to straight. I chose Straight and it was the longest 6 months of my life but non of the abuse happened that most of these other stories I have read.

I was in during 77 and was on my first phase for three months - not long after being on second phase I had my mother call them and withdraw me. I did not suffer, nor did I witness others suffering the horrors of the physical abuse often spoken of here but the mental and emotional abuse was devastating nonetheless. At that time they were just coming off of the seed and all the physical abuse scandals surrounding that, so they just changed the name and building, cleaned up their act for a bit and apparently got right back into the swing of beating and abusing everyone.

[rox76]

My name is Roxanne (Condon).  I can not recollect what year/years I was in Straight.  I remember my intake was in the warehouse off Park Street.  The warehouse was behind a showroom.  Right before I graduated, Straight opened up or built a new warehouse across the road, still on Park Street. When I was on the program there were 4 phases.  Right before I was to graduate they invented a 5th phase. Dr. Ross and Ms. Peterman were there.  Some staff during my duration were: Robin, Kenny Sykes, Marcie, Mike, Amy. I dont recall the rest.  I would be interested in hearing from anyone who remembers me as I would like to figure out what the time frame was when I was there.  Some of my new comers were Judy, Wanda,

[Marnie]

Hi I know you will remember me I was there when you were there - When you were dating Brad - I am Kenny's sister Marnie