The State - News from May 17, 1988

Gina Banks, a guard at the California Correctional Institution, Tehachapi, is the first woman prison guard to be awarded the Department of Corrections Medal of Valor. Banks single-handedly restrained a prisoner with a baton, suffering a stab wound to the shoulder, after the inmate stabbed another guard in the neck with a prison-made knife. She was among 19 Corrections Department employees honored for excellence and bravery in Sacramento. “We salute them for their courage and for their call to duty,” Gov. George Deukmejian said in a 40-minute ceremony at the state Capitol. Ben DeGroot, a parole agent from Sacramento, was also awarded the medal for rescuing a couple from the Russian River north of San Francisco.