Wild Man, B.A.

"Dear Editor," the letter began:

"Does 'Young, Black convict graduates from major university without ever leaving prison' appear newsworthy to you? I've actually lived the above story, and if it appears that I'm tooting my own horn, please realize that my circumstances (being confined) leave me no alternative..."

With this bold declaration, mailed to various periodicals (including TIME), Victor Taylor, 28, announced his impending graduation, magna cum laude, from Southern Illinois University. He did indeed have a story to tell. A high school dropout from Dallas, he joined the Navy, tried to become a pilot but was disqualified for color blindness. That made him so "disenchanted with Navy life," as he put it, that he robbed a naval-station bank of $125,000 and ended with a ten-year prison term.

Paroled in 1967, he continued, "I went on a robbery spree which netted me an aggregate of 61 years in prison sentences." Twice he escaped--from prisons in Atlanta and Oklahoma City; twice he was recaptured. Finally he was sent to the federal penitentiary in Marion, Ill.., a maximum-security prison known as "the new Alcatraz."

There he learned in group-encounter sessions that "I was the type of guy who always placed or showed but never won. In almost every project I ever undertook, I'd get very close to finishing it and then I'd abandon it. I'd never even read a book all the way through." Instructors from John A. Logan College in Carterville, Ill.., paid regular visits to the prison, so Taylor signed up for six courses, including biology, math and Western civilization. He got straight A's. Encouraged, he moved on into black studies, logic, electronics and criminology--all courses specially sent to him by Southern Illinois. S.I.U. waived tuition and provided tapes of lectures. Taylor chose psychology as his major, "mainly because I wanted to discover what made me tick."

Finding it hard to study through the noise made by fellow inmates, Taylor regularly slept from 5:30 p.m. until midnight, then studied until 7:30 a.m., when he had to go to work in the prison's education department. He earned a grade average of 4.89 out of a possible 5, and finished four years' studies in 21 months --a record for the university.

Because of his two escape attempts, prison authorities refused to let Taylor go to the university to receive his diploma, so S.I.U. sent two officials to the prison cafeteria to present it to him. "This diploma means a hell of a lot to me," Taylor said. "This diploma makes me feel I can do anything." Then tears started to run down his cheeks. Taylor recalled that he hadn't cried since he was 13. "But this year I cried when my father died. And now this. This must be my year for crying."

Taylor has already begun working by correspondence on a doctorate in clinical psychology. The problem is that he cannot complete an advanced degree without attending the university. He is not eligible for parole until 1976, and he cannot even get to a class unless he can convince the authorities that "I am not the wild man I once appeared to be." To do that, he may figure that the best method is a loud toot on the horn.

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