Stanley Frankart: A Servant (Still) in the Business of Redemption
Looking at Stan Frankart’s kind eyes and warm smile, one would never imagine that he did time in the state prison system. But Stanley has been “justice involved” from a very early age – committing his first crime at the age of ten. This led him down a dark path, which included drugs, gangs, and violence – eventually ending with his incarceration at fifteen and a half. Given an adolescent life sentence and ten years as an adult, Stan continued living much the same lifestyle behind bars that had landed him there in the first place; that is, until December 2012 when Christ met him along his “Damascus Road.”
“I was in the middle of a gang fight,” Stanley recalls. “I found myself laying on the ground being jumped, kicked, punched, and stabbed by ten men.”
And it was in that moment Stan realized just how powerless he was over his own life.
“I had been on this spiritual journey,” Stanley explains. “I had been exposed to many different faith backgrounds, and one common denominator in all those faith backgrounds happens to be this person named Jesus. So, as I was laying on the ground, realizing how powerless I was, I just cried out and said, God, Jesus, whoever you are, if you're real, get me off of this ground.”
Five minutes later Stan Frankart walked out of the Richland Correctional Institution’s multi-purpose room a radically changed man.
He immediately gave up his wrongful ways – trading in his gang affiliations for religious ones. But the Lord’s plan extended well beyond that fated day in December. Indeed, Stanley believes “God used higher education as a catalyst in my life” by “calling me to turn my prison experience into my Princeton experience.”
Thus, in August of 2015, Stanley signed up for classes with Ashland University – eventually graduating with an Associate’s degree in May of 2025, and is on his way to earning a Bachelor’s degree in 2026. Of course, also in that time, Stan was released from prison, able to start a family of his own, and establish a successful career – all through “God’s grace.”
Today, Stanley Frankart is busy man. He not only has a wife and two young daughters, but also serves as a supervisor at the Licking County Coalition for Housing and is the co-founder of a non-profit organization, called Young Christian Professionals. Ironically, this latter initiative began at almost the exact same time as Stan’s Ashland journey, which is something he describes as a truly “supernatural” feeling. Yet, through it all, he remains mindful of what got him to this place.
“Honestly, pursuing higher education,” Stanley reflects, “was a call to something greater. It was a call from that throne room of heaven that said, ‘Stan, you've led people in the wrong direction all your life. It's time you start leading them in the right direction.’”
Stanley Frankart thus fashions himself to be a true servant of the modern day, and credits Ashland University for making that “career choice” possible.
“To have a second chance in our education,” Stan explains, provides a “pathway for us to be…the hands and feet of Jesus in society,” so “the world outside can see God is still in the business of redemption.”
Through AU’s academic efforts, Stanley hopes his fellow Correctional Education colleagues “know they're worth more than their worst decisions, worst mistakes, whatever it may be,” and that, ultimately, those individuals realize “you’re worth more than your past.”