true08/04/2026 11:22:09 AMAgainst the OddsTammy Zimmer (right) wears a black cap and gown with a white stoll as she hands the diploma to a man in a black cap and gown with a blue tassel at the 2025 prison education graduation ceremony.Tammy Zimmer (right) hands a graduate a diploma at a graduation ceremony at the Nebraska State Penitentiary.Tammy Zimmer (right) wears a black cap and gown with a white stoll as she hands the diploma to a man in a black cap and gown with a blue tassel at the 2025 prison education graduation ceremony.Tammy Zimmer knows what it means to have the deck stacked against you. Her mother had her and her twin sister at 16 and her father didn’t finish high school. Poverty wasn’t a circumstance in her childhood; it was the landscape.Prison Education ProgramUPWARD