There have been a lot of books about prisoners, but not so many about the other men who spend a large part of their lives in prison, the ones who run the place. Warden: Texas Prison Life from the Inside Out is the story one one of those men, Jim Willett. He grew up in Groesbeck, Texas, not far from Mexia, my hometown, and his father had the Pearl beer distributorship in Mexia. I never knew Jim Willett, but I found his story fascinating. He began work for the Texas prison system as a way to earn money while he was in college and wound up spending the rest of his working life in jail, beginning as a guard at one of the pickets and finally becoming warden of the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas, the unit where the death sentence is carried out. Along the way he was present at the most notorious hostage situation ever to occur in a Texas prison, and toward the end he oversaw a number of executions. Warden tells about some of his experiences, and interspersed among them are accounts of of those executions. If you've ever wondered about what goes on in the Death Chamber, these accounts are worth the price of the book by themselves. Texans will immediately recognize the names of several of the men whose deaths Willett oversaw: Dennis Dowthitt, Kenneth McDuff, Gary Graham. How Willett felt about his job may surprise you, or it may not, but the power of these stories will stay with you for a long time.
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