Biography
Ladon Sheats was a Christian pacifist and persistent nuclear-resistance activist born in 1934. After working with the Mennonite Central Committee and living at Jonah House, he helped organize the 1981 prayer pilgrimage to the Pantex nuclear weapons assembly plant near Amarillo, Texas. Arrested on February 10, he refused bond, received a one-year sentence, and remained in custody until December 24, 1981. Sheats served further prison terms for nonviolent actions at nuclear weapons facilities and wrote about prayer and spiritual practice in prison. He died of cancer on August 9, 2002.
A separate 1983 prisoner-directory lead
The directory lists Ladon Sheats at a San Pedro prison address with a December 1983 or January 1984 projected endpoint. The earlier 1981 Pantex stay already has a separately documented release and is not extended through this later listing. The later case, intake and actual discharge remain unidentified; the forecast is not an actual release and no completed duration is inferred.
Separate 1983 custody evidence and limits
The Pantex update individually names Kathy Jennings and Ladon Sheats with Christine Eirene as climbing the fence on Ash Wednesday 1983, being charged with criminal trespass and remaining in jail until their trial. They were convicted and were still described in prison custody after sentencing. The anniversary action is distinct from the February 1981 Pantex case already stored. Jennings and Sheats received one year, while Eirene received six months plus probation; imposed terms are not completed actual days. This source names Ash Wednesday; the independently reviewed July issue explicitly identifies that Pantex date as February 16. No exact trial or sentencing day, actual final discharge, or uninterrupted posttrial total is invented.
The Nuclear Resister No.17, June 6, 1983, original pages 3–4.
The Nuclear Resister No.18, July 7, 1983, original page 5 explicitly identifies the Pantex Ash Wednesday trespass as February 16.
Separate November 1985 Project ELF custody
On November 12, 1985 Ladon Sheats and Mike Miles first crossed the Project ELF fence and were cited and released. They reentered the same day and were taken to Ashland County Jail, where they remained after declining a promise to return for trial. The judge entered not-guilty pleas on their behalf. This is a separate 1985 case, not either Pantex stay. The rescheduled December 26 trial was future, not an actual release proved by this issue; Mike Miles’s later-source release is not automatically assigned to Sheats.
The Nuclear Resister No.36, December 9, 1985, original PDF pages 2,4.
Contemporary 1983–1984 custody evidence
The current report says Ladon Sheats had been imprisoned at Terminal Island and affirmatively lists him recently released. This gives a historical placement and actual out status but no precise discharge. It is not a separate new arrest and does not transfer Walter Dorrell’s detention dates to Sheats.
The Nuclear Resister No. 23, February 12, 1984, original PDF 4 / printed 3.
Individually documented 1985–1986 custody chronology
The follow-up individually names Ladon Sheats and Mike Miles as physically taken from Ashland County Jail to court two days after Jeff Leys’s Christmas Eve release: December 26, 1985. Both had been jailed there for forty-four days following their November 12 repeat entry at Project ELF. Both were convicted, fined $1,150 each, and physically released on time served. This independently establishes Sheats’s own December 26 release and disposition, rather than copying Miles’s endpoint or using the earlier scheduled trial as proof. The prior first-entry citation/release is not additional continuous custody, and the 1981 and 1983 Pantex stays remain separate.
The Nuclear Resister No. 37, January 20, 1986, original PDF pages [5].
Joan Cavanagh’s contemporary signed letter reports that thirteen people were arrested at the White House on November 26, 1975 during an anti-nuclear “Disarm or Dig Graves” action. Four received citation release and six were released the next day, but Joan Burds, J. Edward Dudgeon and Ladon Sheats remained in jail on $500 surety bonds pending trial. The letter distinguishes two charge groups without assigning these three to one group. Scheduled December 23 and January 2 trials are not evidence of their actual release dates.
The September 19, 1981 newsletter individually prints the historical prison register number 11388-077 for Ladon Sheats. This identifies the contemporary custody record; it is not a current prison mailing address or evidence of present imprisonment. The original image was checked rather than relying on OCR. Existing release evidence and separate custody episodes are retained.
