Back in 1979, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission hired a man named Macy Butler as a game warden.
He worked with Game and Fish until 1983, operating primarily in Benton County. He lived in Bella Vista at the time, at one point right off Lake Avalon.
He was good at his job, too -- he was even nominated for Officer of the Year in 1982, largely for his involvement in an undercover operation.
He always tried to be sensible with his application of the law, he said.
"You have to do some common-sense stuff with law enforcement," Butler said. "We had so many serious violators. Why should I bother a guy out fishing with his kid and they may not have a license? That wasn't my style; that wasn't my profile."
The thing that made Butler stand out most, though, wasn't his skill or his friendly demeanor, but his skin color. He was the first black game warden in the state. In those days, Benton County was almost exclusively white. But Macy said it didn't affect his work.
During one undercover operation, his skin color worked well for him, he said. In that operation, he said, he went down to the eastern side of the state in search of poachers -- and when he found them, they never considered the prospect that he might be a game warden.
"I was a black guy down in Helena," he said. There were no black police officers, state troopers or game wardens. At least, that's what they thought.
Butler was set up with a trailer, which he was able to live and work out of, and once that was in order he got busy hunting poachers.
He started, he said, by asking around at a bait shop, trying to find out where he could get some deer -- out of season, of course. He got an address and went to check it out.
He was nervous going in and even considered turning back as he approached the place.
The contact he was supposed to meet, he said, wasn't around, but the man's wife was. She asked how much Butler was interested in buying, then pulled a tarp off a pickup, revealing a pile of dead deer.
Butler said he'd come back for something fresher. A few days later, he'd purchased some poached deer.
This poacher, he said, was part of a loosely organized group. Butler was able to get further into that group and meet more of them.
They were all white, he said, and all living somewhat prosperously, aside from the first one he met. That individual, he said, had a tendency to drink and throw his money away, so he stayed broke.
Deer were apparently profitable, but making money outside the law often comes with certain risks. In this case, the entire poaching ring was arrested.
Butler recalled the scene in the courtroom, where he was clean-cut and in uniform -- a stark contrast to the afro'd young man these poachers had met.
"They walked into court and they saw me and they just hung their heads," he said.
The case never made it to a trial. Each of them immediately changed their plea to guilty, he said, and it was the first time anyone was arrested for killing animals in the state of Arkansas.
Butler was also the star of an award-winning photo taken by Gloria Howell, who had met him during her work as a reporter with The Weekly Vista. On a recent visit to Bella Vista, Macy stayed with Howell.
"I have this picture," Howell said. "Here's his black face with those two white owls."
She got the shot, she said, because she met Butler in the course of reporting. When he found out about the owlets, whose mother had either been killed or abandoned them, he called Howell up and told her she had a great photo op if she wanted to meet up with him.
That photo, she said, won first place in the National Federation of Press Women's statewide photography contest, then went on to win the national award.
"I did have five national awards," she said. "But that was the best one."
Butler said that he continued to live in Bella Vista for another couple years after his stint with Game and Fish ended, working with the Property Owners Association as the assistant lake supervisor. He helped to care for the lakes and gave boat tours.
In 1986, he said, he moved back to Little Rock. He spent the next decade going back and forth to Winter Haven, Fla., to visit his mother, Fannie Butler. Christmas day 1996, he and his wife, Gwen Butler, moved down to Florida to be with her. They've stayed in Florida ever since, only recently returning to visit Arkansas and meet up with Howell.
They live in Cypress Gardens now, he said, and while it used to be a huge retirement community, it's now home to Legoland.
He's currently keeping himself busy self-publishing books and running a nonprofit organization, the REACH community Development Corporation. REACH, he said, stands for "Receiving Everyone As Christ Has."
"All my stuff is somewhat biblical," he said, "even though my business is secular."
This organization, he said, helps a lot of people from out of the nation start and run businesses -- helping them understand business procedures in the United States and set up banking, for instance.
The books he's worked on, "Where Did the Cotton Go?" recounts his days as a game warden. He also wrote "Walk With Dignity," he said.
"I self-published. I did my covers. I did just about everything," he said.
And now that he's published some of his own work, he said, he's working with Howell to publish additional books.
One of those, Howell said, will be her life story -- a large portion of which is her eight years with The Vista.
Butler said that meeting up with his old friend Howell was the primary motivation for his return to Bella Vista.
It was interesting, he said, to see his old stomping grounds once more, though it was hard to recognize with the past three decades' changes.
"The growth has been incredible," he said. "This has been a change. Especially for someone who really appreciates the natural aspect."
General News on 12/07/2016