Caitlyn Lawson is a Rutherford High School student who recently served an internship at The News Herald through a partnership with the school’s Communication
Technology program. With television having an impact on us every day, there are some interesting stories about how it can inspire us. The series “Jericho” is one example, and a Panama City woman is involved. In April, Susan Howell was among the leaders of a national convention in honor of the show. The CBS series, which was brought back to life and then cancelled again, was about a city called Jericho that could depend on nothing but itself. It was isolated because of a nuclear attack on major cities of the United States. Welcome Home to Jericho: A Charity Event was at The Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City, Calif., from April 24 to 26. Howell was the social chairwoman, which she said “is only as successful as the people she has working with her.” She added that “our creative team (is) 100 percent volunteer.” At the convention, Howell had an opportunity to meet stars of the TV show, including Esai Morales and Gerald McRaney. They “are both huge supporters of the troops,” she wrote in an e-mail to The News Herald. “Esai just returned from Afghanistan and Iraq he was over there visiting the troops. This was Gerald McRaney’s first gathering with his cast mates since the end of season one of Jericho” in 2007. Howell said Welcome Home to Jericho raised more than $5,000 for Operation Homefront, which supports families of deployed military personnel. Supporters of the show also sent DVDs to troops abroad and raised more than $20,000 to aid the tornadoravaged town of Greensburg, Kan. The town was chosen because the fictional Jericho was in Kansas. Howell is widowed with one son and a stepdaughter, and her stepson-in-law is in the military and was deployed to Korea during the first year of his child’s life. She said she also has a kinship with numerous family and friends connected with the military, so she has a sense of what it feels like for children to have parents deployed in various parts of the world. A Panama City native, she graduated from Gulf Coast Community College with a major in nursing and a minor in pre-law. She has worked with the Florida Division of Youth Services and Early Childhood Services and is a certified trauma nurse.
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