In prison, Phipps tells of small joys

By Mark Johnson
Charlotte.com

Meg Scott Phipps, daughter and granddaughter of N.C. governors, tumbled from a political legacy to sleeping on the floor in a one-person cell shared with a mentally ill prisoner.

With her expected release Monday from a federal prison camp in Alderson, W.Va., she will have finished more than three years of incarceration. Phipps, the former commissioner of agriculture who pleaded guilty to public corruption charges, completed most of her sentence at Alderson, where her husband's grandmother once worked as a guard.