WESTVILLE | Dane Standish was class valedictorian and class president.

He played varsity football, basketball and baseball.

He was in National Honor Society and Future Farmers of America before heading to Indiana University where he was a premed student with a 3.9 grade point average at the end of his freshman year.

Now, he's No. 171630, serving a 12-year prison sentence at Westville Correctional Facility.

"Prison changes people, but it can be a change for the better if you focus," said Standish, 22, who just finished his first year behind bars for driving drunk and causing an accident that killed three others in his hometown of Kentland, while he was home on summer break in August 2005.

Last Thursday, on his way to be interviewed by The Times, he was strip-searched and surrounded by guards and dogs, since the entire complex is on lockdown.

It was a 93-degree day, and the living quarters have only fans to circulate the air.

But the "focus" Standish talked about as the means to guide him through the worst chapter of his life includes a positive outlook for the future.

As a convicted felon, he no longer can pursue his dream of working as a doctor.

But while serving time, Standish is enrolled in courses offered by Purdue University North Central taught to offenders inside the facility. He also is paying for his own correspondence courses through Indiana University and, by Christmas, he'll have his bachelor's degree.

Standish becomes angry when others say he's "not remorseful" for the accident.

"I don't remember what happened, only what I was told in the hospital," he said.

"But I've cried a lot about the memories I've been left with."

Standish and two friends had been drinking at a party on Aug. 15, 2005. They spent the night at the house where the party took place.

Though he doesn't recall the details of the accident that occurred at 8:30 in the morning on Aug. 16, police say he driving his family's 1994 Suburban when it went though a stop sign and struck the car of an elderly couple, who were killed immediately.

Standish and his two friends were not wearing seat belts. He was pinned under his own car and on top of his friend Gene, who was dead at the scene.

"It had rained, so I was told if the ground hadn't been soft and muddy, I would have also been killed from the impact," Standish said.

His friend Andrew was in the back seat and survived.

Had his case gone to trial, his lawyer said if convicted by a jury, he would have been sentenced to 28 years, so he settled with the prosecutor and was given a 12-year sentence.

"I'm glad I'm here at Westville, because they have so many programs available to offenders to help prepare them to leave this place better prepared, so they wouldn't come back," he said.

"But it's up to you to take advantage of the opportunities provided. No one will push you if you don't first push yourself."

He also credits the support of his mother, Caprice Murphy, and his father, Earl Standish, and stepmother, Cathy, for encouraging him to make the most of his fate.

"Of all those sports I played in high school, I never felt the kind of cheering and encouragement to succeed like I feel I have now," he said.

"And that encouragement for drive and ambition comes not only from the outside, but also inside yourself."