Be It Ever So Humble

Though Iowa Governor Robert Ray has been asked all kinds of favors, he recently received a unique request. A state convict named Bobbie Ferguson pleaded to be allowed to remain in prison when his sentence is up in a year: "I am writing you this letter to tell you that I want a life term I have no friends no family and no trade so I don't want to rob some one or steal I am not that kind so I am writing you for help in my matter to try to stay here for life. Thank you Bobbie"

No one would argue that jail is not home for Bobbie. He has spent most of his 39 years behind bars and walls of one kind or another. He was born to a convict mother in a women's reformatory. Shortly after birth he was placed in a state hospital for 14 years. During this period, he may have enjoyed, or rather suffered, a few months of freedom, and may even have spent some time with his maternal grandparents. Between 14 and 19, the record is even hazier; Bobbie's story is that he was in one institution or another. What is clear is that ever since 19 he has made sure he stayed in jail.

Whenever he has been released in recent years, he has committed some crime--vagrancy, robbery, larceny--in order to get arrested again. Placed in halfway houses, he has invariably escaped. If police did not find him soon enough, he turned himself in. The punishment: jail, of course.

In all his escapades he has never hurt anyone. "In some of his periods of frustration, he may have been slightly threatening," says Lou V. Brewer, warden of the state penitentiary at Fort Madison, where Bobbie is presently incarcerated. "But he's never followed through on any threat. He's just a big old affable guy."

Substitute Family. Bobbie likes his fellow cons and he likes to work, mostly as a janitor. "I think he knows us better than anybody else," says Deputy Warden Paul Hedgepeth. "Maybe we're the substitute for things that he lacked in life--ike a family."

Governor Ray is pondering Bobbie's plight. As his press secretary Dick Gelbert explains: "The Governor has no power to extend sentences; he can only commute or pardon or parole." But the publicity aroused by Bobbie's letter may eventually get him what he wants. MGM has even considered doing a movie or TV show about his life, a project Bobbie thought he would like.

The attention given Bobbie may also remind people that he is articulating what many other prisoners feel but cannot express. They are terrified of the outside world and its demands, and they commit crimes--sometimes violent ones--to be returned to the security of prison. "Bobbie's case is extreme," says Warden Brewer, "but you'll find his story in every prison in the country."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.