Guts, glory and opportunity on the outside

Yahoo

02-05-2025

The annual Angola Prison Rodeo, marking its 60th anniversary this year, offers more than the chance for glory for its participants. Proceeds from the event fund educational programs that offer a chance for a better life. (Piper Hutchinson/Louisiana Illuminator)
ANGOLA – The annual Angola Prison Rodeo, marking its 60th anniversary this year, offers more than the chance for glory for its participants. Proceeds from the event fund educational programs that offer a chance for a better life.
Held every Sunday in October and one weekend in April, the infamous prison rodeo is one of the highlights of the year for the hundreds of men incarcerated at the Louisiana State Penitentiary who participate in the events.
Despite its controversies, the rodeo's most ardent supporters are its participants, for whom the event is a rare bridge to the world outside Angola's thousands of acres and an opportunity to financially support themselves and their education.
Andrew Hundley, executive director of the Louisiana Parole Project, which assists formerly incarcerated people as they reenter society, likened Angola to a college campus. It's an apt metaphor for Hundley, who completed correspondence courses at LSU while he was incarcerated at Angola.
'There are a lot of opportunities there to use your time wisely, or use your time not so wisely,' Hundley said. 'For the people who want to use their time wisely, they're more than a dozen vocational programs that are there, from automotive repair to collision repair, carpentry, welding, plumbing, small engine repair, you name it.'
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The rodeo is unlike any professional rodeo. For starters, the 75 or so men who compete don't receive any training. For many of them, the first time they mount a bull is just seconds before the gates open.
While the men do receive safety vests and helmets, the lack of training makes it more dangerous than a traditional rodeo. After one event at the April 26 rodeo, one incarcerated person was seen falling multiple times trying to get out of the arena after his event, eventually having to be helped out of the mud.
This rodeo — nicknamed 'the Wildest Show in the South' — is also different because it offers unique events that add to the spectacle — like bull pinball.
It works like this: a rodeo clown sets down hula hoops in the arena, and an incarcerated person stands in each one. A bull is released and the last man remaining in his hoop wins.
A clown identified only as Rudy exchanged banter with the rodeo emcee over the arena's public address system.
'Now what would make a human being get in one of them hoops?' Rudy asked during the show.
'It's kind of like trying to sign up for the Darwin Award,' the emcee replied, referencing the rhetorical honor given to people who contribute to evolution by removing themselves from the gene pool, usually through a foolish and dangerous act.
The prison has held its rodeo since 1965 and has been the subject of frequent criticism.
Operating as a farm on the site of a former slave plantation, Louisiana State Penitentiary has a brutal history. For much of its time, it has been known for indiscriminate violence. Even after significant reforms throughout the late 20th century, it is still the subject of controversy.
Workers on the prison's 'farm line,' who pick the vegetables that help feed the prisoners, are currently suing the state, alleging dangerous working conditions. Inmates at Angola can earn a maximum of $8 a week, regardless of the type of work they do.
Despite the danger and outside criticism, none of the dozen incarcerated men or formerly incarcerated men the Illuminator interviewed at the rodeo had a negative thing to say about the event.
Assistant Warden Anne Easley sat in on all interviews the lluminator conducted at the rodeo. Only incarcerated people with trusty status, meaning they have served at least 10 years of their sentence and have good disciplinary records, were participating in the event and therefore available for interviews.
In addition to rodeo participants, interviewees included inmate-instructors and incarcerated people selling crafts they made using skills learned at the prison. The craft fair, held outside the rodeo arena, has an atmosphere not unlike a flea market. It offers handmade goods including furniture, art and jewelry. Merchandise sales support the incarcerated people financially or finance prison organizations such as sobriety groups.
'Y'all come to this rodeo to find out how people feel about it. If all of your views on a rodeo are negative, and you're not getting all negative answers, then something's off, right?,' Jeffrey Hilburn, editor of The Angolite, the prison's news magazine, said in an interview. 'But if you come here and you find out that an inmate who's making a hobby craft … he's going to get a good percentage of that money.'
'His family doesn't have to send him that money. His family can pay their taxes, gas bill, save enough and buy a dozen eggs for $10,' added Hilburn, who serving time for the 1991 second-degree murder of Mark Jones in Richland Parish. He was recently denied parole.
But support for the rodeo, while widespread among incarcerated people and formerly incarcerated people, is not universal.
Norris Henderson, now executive director of Voice of the Experienced, an organization that advocates for incarcerated people, was once held at Angola. Henderson was exonerated after 27 years of incarceration. As a volunteer in the prison infirmary, he saw first-hand the injuries of the rodeo participants.
'To me, the rodeo was just this form of exploitation,' Henderson said. 'This is kind of like the Roman Coliseum, where people come to cheer, not the humans in the arena, they come to cheer the animals?
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The career training programs the rodeo finances are run by inmate-instructors, who are required to have the same certifications as those who teach the same courses at a community or technical college.
There are 17 different career and technical education programs at the prison. According to a fact-sheet included in a souvenir rodeo program, the inmate-led reentry training and mentoring program saves the state $4 million a year.
Among the instructors is Luther McFarland, the only incarcerated person with teaching certification from the American Welding Society. He is also certified by the National Center for Construction Education and Research.
Like most other instructors at Angola, McFarland is a 'lifer,' meaning he's serving a life sentence. McFarland, who does not have the possibility of parole, was convicted of the 2004 second-degree murder of Coulton Lyell Jr. in Metairie.
McFarland has a welding certification from Baton Rouge Community College, which he received before the school ended its program at Angola due to budget constraints. McFarland said he has taught welding at Angola since 2010.
'It really helped me build character … when you're coming from the streets and you got guys from New Orleans … coming with some mindset, it was really a challenge, but we got through it,' McFarland said of his time as an instructor. 'It wasn't easy, but we got through it.'
The instruction has to start with basics, as many of his students have never handled basic tools. But eventually they get trained up enough to do serious work, McFarland said. Several of the barbeque grills he and his students had welded were on sale that Saturday.
'We learn how to just get the guys up to a par so when they go home, they have the mindset to be able to work in this type of environment and know what to expect from them because it's the same way,' McFarland said.
McFarland said his work training his students to be welders when they're released was the start of his legacy. Though not eligible for parole, he hopes he will receive clemency. In order to receive a sentence commutation, an individual must receive a favorable vote of the Pardon Board as well as approval from the governor.
Two of McFarland's former students came to visit their former instructor at the rodeo, including Austin McCraine, father to a newborn. McCraine served time for theft. He said he came back to the rodeo to pay homage to his friends and mentors.
McCraine worked in welding for a year before moving up to a pipefitter's job, which typically calls for more skills and experience – and pays better.
'I've been working there for almost a year now,' McCraine said. 'This whole place has made me a different person.'
Drew Hawkins of Gulf States Newsroom contributed to this report. Reporting for this story was supported by the The Institute for Citizens & Scholars' Higher Education Media Fellowship.
An accompanying episode of The Light Switch, the Louisiana Illuminator podcast, can be found below.