by Barry Siegel
At Florence, Macumber had by then spent more than two years in Cellblock 2. The conditions there felt like a dungeon to him—dirty, unsanitary, cold in winter, withering heat in summer, rats and roaches everywhere. The first winter, as he recalled, he nearly froze to death. In September 1977, prison officials removed half the roof for repairs, but they didn’t replace it until the next June. Snow fell into the cellblock. Reaching out from his cell, Macumber could catch snowflakes. He and the other inmates slept with their clothes on, still shivering. In the morning, they had to break the ice in the toilet with a broom handle.
In the summer of 1979, just as the courts were rejecting his last appeals, the prison warden summoned Macumber. If we transfer you to North Unit, he wanted to know, will you try to run? Bill thought that funny—where or how would he run? Of course not, he told the warden. No, he wouldn’t.
A week later, a guard stopped at his cell and told him to pack up. North Unit, a medium-security annex located across the street from the main prison, had once been the women’s prison, before they shifted the female inmates to Perryville. Macumber was shocked as the guard drove him through the gates leading into the annex. Everything was green, with flowers all over the place. The annex had no cells; the inmates lived in three dorms. The guard stopped the van at Dorm 3, Macumber’s new home.
He sensed the old fear creeping in. The less-confining conditions were nice, but without a cell, he’d lack protection. He’d be accessible to all the inmates. He had no choice, though. The dorm had a central dayroom and two wings, each with a bathroom and two rows of thirteen beds. Macumber dropped his possessions on his bunk—Bed 13, in the first row—then went to the clothing room to pick up blankets, sheets, a pillow and towels. He began to unpack, keeping a wary eye on the dorm’s inmates. A slender man in his early thirties had the bed next to his. After half an hour, he turned to Bill and introduced himself. He went by the nickname Coyote. “You shouldn’t worry here,” he told Macumber. “We all make a point of getting along because it’s such a small unit.” True enough, Bill thought. The annex housed only 146 men. After nearly a thousand sometimes hostile inmates in Cellblock 2, this felt like heaven.
At lunch call, Coyote walked with him to the kitchen. Macumber couldn’t believe his eyes when they stepped inside: Every table had a tablecloth with a napkin holder, salt and pepper shakers and a bottle of hot sauce. The windows had blue curtains. The room looked bright and clean. Most striking, it was quiet, with none of the screaming and yelling Bill had heard daily in the cellblock chow hall. After being “in the walls,” learning to live like an animal, he was amazed that a place like this existed in the prison system.
Coyote took him on a tour after lunch. Though small, the annex had tennis courts, a volleyball slab, a weight-lifting area. Prisoners could be outside the dorm all the time except for count, which took place at 11:00 A.M., 4:00 P.M., and 8:00 P.M. They didn’t have to return to their dorms until 9:30 P.M., when the yard closed.
Macumber wished he could regard this vast change in surroundings as a turning point for him. Yes, he had more freedom, a better environment, safer conditions, fewer worries. Yet he still faced life in prison without his sons, without his freedom. So all the improvements made little difference to his mood. He wrote his parents and brother anyway, reporting on his new home. They promptly came to visit, expressing astonishment at the change from Bill’s life in the walls. They could meet with him now in a large visitation room, and from there go outside to sit at picnic tables. Rather than hassling everyone, the guards were courteous and helpful. Bill could see how much this setting raised his family’s spirits, so he did his best to maintain a cheerful attitude. He never again wanted to cast shadows.
* * *
Then came an event that would prove a turning point—that would, in fact, trigger a transformation in Bill. During the fall of 1979, several members of the Phoenix Jaycees visited Florence on a recruiting mission. At the North Unit annex, they spoke to a large group of inmates about starting a prison chapter of the Arizona Jaycees. Neither Bill nor the other inmates knew about this group, but they listened. The Jaycees (originally short for Junior Chamber of Commerce) was a civic- and community-oriented organization active in all fifty states, with chapters in hundreds of cities, devoted to raising money for charities by staging events. They’d first ventured into the criminal justice system in 1962, with a chapter formed in the state penitentiary at Moundsville, West Virginia. The Arizona Jaycees initially got involved with prisoners in 1968, and by the time the Phoenix contingent came to visit Macumber’s unit at Florence, they had some five hundred inmate members in twelve prison chapters. This organization sounded appealing to Macumber. If Florence started a prison chapter, they could be a part of the Arizona Jaycees and could participate in programs offered by the United States Jaycees. Macumber, with his degree in business administration, could imagine all sorts of possibilities.
During a break after their visitors’ presentation, the inmates conferred on their own. Let’s give it a try, they decided. Why not? We have nothing to lose.
The Phoenix Jaycees, genuinely delighted, began handing out documents and paperwork. Then, to Macumber’s surprise, the Jaycees selected him to be the interim chapter president, to serve until the prisoners could get organized and hold a regular election. The Jaycees would come down every week, they promised, to guide him through the start-up process.
So it began. Macumber’s life did not shift from dark to light, but the new home and the sudden presence of the Jaycee program had an effect. He forced himself to face up to his situation. He came to realize that he’d lost the life he’d once known, lost his sons, lost all else he’d once held dear. He began to feel the need to get himself back on track, to apply his spirit and talents not only for himself but for the peace of mind of his parents, brother and friends. It would not be easy, he knew that. But he aimed to stay with it.
* * *
The inmates named their Jaycee chapter the Roadrunners and held their initial meeting two weeks after the visit by the Phoenix members. Choosing officers was their first order of business. One of the inmates moved to elect Macumber by affirmation, and half a minute later Bill became the chapter’s president, a position he would hold for four years. The group, about thirty men at the start, began meeting regularly, discussing possible goals and projects. With Macumber using the Jaycee president’s manual as his guide, they set up prison classes on such topics as financial management, public speaking, personal dynamics, family living, communications and spiritual development—anything that would help inmates prepare for their eventual release. When the Phoenix Jaycees came to visit again after one month, they were astonished at the progress; they’d never seen a new chapter get off the ground so quickly. After two months, the Roadrunners had grown to sixty members.
As one of their first activities, the Roadrunners proposed to construct and operate a snack bar for inmates in the North Unit, something usually allowed only in minimum-custody yards. Yet Macumber won approval from the warden and central prison authorities in Phoenix. He located an old trailer, converted it to a working grill, stocked it with food and hired inmates as cooks. Next Macumber convinced the warden to let them expand the snack bar into the visitation area to replace a row of vending machines. The Roadrunners’ snack bar opened just before Christmas 1979, serving steaks, chops, fish, complete breakfasts, hamburgers, sandwiches, burritos, pizza, popcorn, soft drinks, coffee and ice cream. They entered 1980 on a roll, full of energy, now redesigning the North Unit’s entire visitation area. Macumber’s parents noticed the change in him before he did, and his brother mentioned it when he visited early in the new year: Bill had become too busy to think of where he was.
Members in free-world Jaycee chapters around the state soon petitioned the prison administration, asking permission for Bill to attend the monthly meetings of Jaycee chapter presidents in various Arizona cities. Macumber learned of this when the warden called him in to report that central administ
ration had approved the request. The news stunned him, for it broke all precedent. The Roadrunners celebrated, as did Macumber’s family. The first meeting he attended, escorted by a North Unit guard, took place at the Jaycee chapter in New River, Arizona. On the drive there, Bill felt some misgivings, not knowing how he, a convicted murderer, would be received. But his reception in New River turned out to be gracious, the Jaycees regarding him not as Bill Macumber, a prisoner, but as Bill Macumber, president of the Roadrunner Jaycees. He struggled to hide his joy and gratitude. He would never forget that night.
In June 1980, the newly elected Arizona Jaycees president, Ron Walker, befriended Macumber and appointed him his presidential adviser on prison Jaycee chapters. The Roadrunners kept busy all through that year and the next two. In the summer of 1981 they built an annex softball field, making it one of the finest in the prison system. Using income earned from their snack bars, they built a large racquetball and handball court at the annex as well. Their snack bar income also funded donations to groups such as the Make-a-Wish Foundation and Special Olympics. One day, the Arizona Department of Corrections director himself, Ellis MacDougall, appeared at Florence to present Macumber and the Roadrunners with commendations.
Years later, thinking back on these accomplishments, Macumber would chuckle particularly over how they built the softball field. The North Unit captain of security, a fellow named Gilbert, had said absolutely no, they couldn’t do it. “I don’t want to see you building a ballfield,” he’d told Macumber. So the Roadrunners built it when Gilbert went on a six-week vacation. On Gilbert’s very first day away, Macumber had the Roadrunners start clearing the field. They’d finished by the time he returned. Macumber heard his name being shouted over the unit’s intercom that day, Gilbert summoning him. What the hell, Gilbert sputtered, didn’t I tell you not to build this? No, Macumber replied, you told me you didn’t want to see me build it. Later, after Gilbert retired, he happened to spot Macumber in downtown Phoenix, on Jaycee business. Gilbert crossed the street to greet him and shake his hand.
In June 1981, when the Phoenix Jaycees hosted the annual Arizona Jaycee awards dinner, they invited Macumber and allowed him to bring his parents. As the Jaycees handed out awards for their various programs, Macumber heard the Roadrunners name called time and again; that year, their chapter ended up the third most awarded in the state. Finally the moment came to bestow one last honor, the President of the Year Award, chosen by the chapter presidents and the state board of directors. Ron Walker announced the winner: Bill Macumber, selected unanimously. Macumber walked to the podium amid a standing ovation, accepting there a plaque and a shining silver belt buckle. He looked out at the crowd, first seeing his beaming parents, then the warden of the Florence prison, smiling and clapping with everyone else. Never before in the history of the United States Jaycees had an inmate chapter president won this award.
* * *
During these industrious years with the Jaycees in the early 1980s, prison authorities changed Macumber’s “home” several times, but he remained the Roadrunner chapter president and continued his monthly trips to Jaycee meetings. He often made a second trip each month, for Ron Walker had appointed him to the Arizona Jaycees Awards Committee. He enjoyed the long drives, especially since he and his escort would usually stop for a good meal before returning to Florence.
Eventually, prison officials moved Macumber to the Outside Trustee Unit, a minimum-custody section at Florence. Macumber had not thought it possible for anyone with a natural life sentence to see OT, but there he was. They gave him a bed in the warehouse, a large hall with some three hundred inmates. On his second day, they assigned him to work as a Florence Complex plumber, under the supervision of a civilian named Charlie Dumar—who promptly drove Bill to the nearby town of Coolidge so he could take a driver’s test and get a current Arizona state driver’s license. Macumber’s surprise over this doubled when Dumar, the next morning, told him to take their truck to Phoenix and pick up a load of gas pipe from Phoenix Pipe and Steel. Bill assumed there would be an escort, but Dumar said no, go on your own. Macumber drove alone to Phoenix and back that day—a type of freedom he thought he’d never see again. He stopped at a Jack in the Box on the way home, since Dumar had handed him lunch money. He never considered running; that, he’d explain later, would deny everything he wished to prove. Besides, he’d given the guards his word. When he pulled into the plumbers’ yard that evening, Dumar greeted him with a big smile.
From then on, his various trips to Phoenix and other places were sometimes escorted, sometimes not. The escorted trips usually came about because one of the guards, Jim Piekarz, a Jaycee member, enjoyed the outings. When going together, they took Piekarz’s personal car; when alone, Bill drove a prison pickup. Macumber also started visiting other prisons in the state, reporting on and recruiting for the Jaycees. On a few evenings, he and Piekarz even stopped to visit Macumber’s parents and have dinner, the guard right there at the table with his family. Things were quite relaxed back then—that’s the only way Macumber could explain the situation years later.
The Outside Trustee Unit had its own Jaycee chapter, ASPOT Jaycees, headed by Paul LaBarre, a onetime civilian Jaycee in Phoenix, now a prisoner with five consecutive sentences for robbery. He asked Macumber to join his chapter as well, and Bill agreed. LaBarre also asked Macumber to come work with him at the Florence Complex’s TV studio, which he ran. Bill jumped at the opportunity; after a year on the plumbing job, he’d had his fill of cleaning plugged sewer lines. LaBarre began teaching him the TV business—installation and maintenance and the technical aspects of transmission over a closed circuit. For Macumber, it felt like going to college all over again.
LaBarre had yet another project for Macumber. The Florence prison ran the Outlaw Rodeo, an annual three-day event attended by both free-world and inmate cowboys. The prison administrators had staged this themselves in 1983 and 1984—and had lost money both years. So they handed it to the ASPOT Jaycees in 1985. Working together, LaBarre and Macumber pulled it off, showing a profit of more than $36,000, most of it donated to charities such as Special Olympics, the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association telethon. By the next year, LaBarre was gone, released, and Macumber found himself serving as president of the ASPOT Jaycees, director of the Florence TV studio and chairman of the 1986 Prison Outlaw Rodeo. He knew he could run the Jaycees and the TV studio—in fact, that year he designed and implemented a new state-of-the-art closed-circuit satellite television system for Florence. But he wasn’t certain about staging a profitable three-day rodeo on his own.
He began by making a number of trips to Phoenix to sell advertising for the rodeo magazine, something that had not been done before. Then, using a stray truckload of forty-foot-long steel pipes, he saw a way for the Roadrunners to install lights on the Florence prison rodeo grounds, so they could have an evening performance as well as the afternoon rodeos on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Over a weekend, a crew of forty Jaycee inmates, working around the clock, assembled the pipes into ten tall poles equipped with crossbars, lights and wiring. Inmate ingenuity, they called it. With an evening performance and magazine advertising to go along with the usual entry fees, ticket sales and snack bar proceeds, they cleared just over $70,000—all but $2,500 again donated to charities.
When Macumber finally stepped down as president of his Jaycee chapter, he became editor of the Arizona Jaycee newspaper and special adviser to the state Jaycee president. In that role he traveled throughout Arizona, speaking and teaching at street and prison chapters, civic groups and high schools. He also took a job, for Arizona Correctional Industries, overseeing the two inmate crews that installed ACI-produced furniture in the Peoria school district. In his spare time, he converted a reach of high desert outside the prison into arable farmland and taught inmates how to grow their own crops. He arranged, as well, for a local sundry store in Florence to sell inmates’ artwork and handicrafts. Newspapers in Arizona were
now publishing feature articles about him.
* * *
Macumber eventually realized he was earning a PhD in people. In prison, he met so many types. He learned to evaluate rather than judge, focusing on how people spoke, what they said, their expressions and tone. He could goof around with anyone. He could kid, challenge, give them trouble. As time went on, he became a kind of counselor and mediator for the younger inmates, parenting and teaching and policing, as needed. Some of the teaching took place in the yard and the dayroom, some in formal classes—among others, he taught courses in spiritual development, planning techniques and management development, offering each class several times, with nearly four hundred inmates participating overall. The mediating and settling of disputes among inmates often happened at the request of the warden. Prisoners and guards alike came to venerate him. During visitation hours on Sundays, inmates at other tables would bring their families to meet Macumber, explaining to their relatives how much Bill had changed their lives, how much they cared about him, how much they’d do for him. Macumber would always beam and shake hands and toss a line to their parents: I give him trouble, but he deserves it.
When alone, Macumber would write—pages and pages of poetry, essays and fiction. Over time, the pages became books: twenty-four novels (mysteries, adventures, westerns), four children’s novellas, a nonfiction history, a collection of poems. The poems kept coming, twenty-six hundred in all. Sixteen won poetry contests; eleven made it into anthologies.
A good deal of Macumber’s writing stayed as typed pages, but History’s Trail, his collection of poems about the Arizona desert, was published in a limited edition in 1984. It sold more than five thousand copies at the Florence store he helped establish, and remains available at various Arizona public and university libraries. Macumber included a dedication page: “I dedicate this work with pride and love to my three sons, Scott, Steve and Ron Macumber.” At the time, he had not seen or heard from his boys in nine years.
