Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow ham it up before end of their rein of terror in the Southwest.

Five years later he became manager of the Sherman Chamber of Commerce. During that time he also served by appointment from Governor Pat Neff as one of a three member committee to inspect the prison system and make recommendations.

Conditions were not good in the prison system and in 1927 a new prison commission was established and the appointee named to manage the system only remained for three years. In 1930 Governor Dan Moody called Simmons and insisted he take the job of "cleaning up the mess in the Texas Prison System." At first he refused, but changed his mind and accepted the challenge.

In his book, "Assignment Huntsville," Simmons discusses the changes he made in handling the prisoners. When he took it over, the system was almost entirely confinement. Food and health conditions were not good and there were no recreational or educational programs.

During his administration he introduced a farm program reducing the prison operating cost because he believed in a day's work from the inmate. He started a printing press that could be used by the state and a license place factory still in use. He also started a program of vocational training, a baseball team and the now famous annual prison rodeo.

Simmons combined the toughness of a lawman and his concern for human beings and quickly changed things, all the while commanding respect from the convicts and reducing the number of escapes.

Simmons talks about how he conceived the plan that brought Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker to the end of their terror in the Southwest in the 1930s. Simmons got a taste of Barrow when he learned that he was the leader of an outside raid to free Raymond Hamilton and two other convicts, Henry Methvin and Hilton Bybee, who were working on the Eastham Farm near a road.

Hamilton's father hid .45 caliber pistols in a culvert the night before and Hamilton and Palmer began firing at guards as Barrow drove up in an escape car. Bullets from his machine gun killed one guard and the other two fled.

Simmons was furious and was determined to capture and punish the escapees and Barrow. Simmons' book relates the escapades of Barrow and Parker during the time of the Great Depression. He admitted he lost a lot of sleep trying to figure out how to capture the escapees and Clyde and Bonnie, who he learned was in the escape car with Clyde.

A plan was worked out by Simmons that involved adding a new position as special investigator to the Prison System. The governor and two other state officials signed off on the change noting that the investigator was to be "put on the trail of Clyde and Bonnie and to stay on it until they were either captured or put out of business."

Texas Ranger Captain Frank Hamer was appointed to the job and the appointment was to be kept secret. Miriam Ferguson was governor by then and she and her husband, Jim agreed to grant clemency to any underworld informant who supplied reliable information leading to the capture. A $1,000 reward "dead or alive," also was offered.

Their robbing and killing rampage in Texas and Louisiana continued with Hamer hot on their trail. About 8 p.m. April 22, 1934, Hamer telephoned Simmons and said, "The old hen is about ready to hatch: I think the chickens will come off tomorrow." The next morning Simmons headed back to Arcadia, La. It had been 102 days since Simmons had appointed Hamer as his special investigator.

On the afternoon of April 22 Bonnie and Clyde, along with escapee Henry Methvin stopped at a restaurant in Louisiana and Methvin went in for sandwiches. When he didn't come back, it is believed that Bonnie and Clyde figured he had been "jumped." Clyde drove to Methvin's dad's house and left word that he would meet Henry on the road between Gibsland and Arcadia at about 9 a.m. the next day.

Methvin went home and his dad got in touch with authorities who made their plans. On the morning of April 23, old Mr. Methvin was on the road with his logging truck and stopped at a rise of a hill and drove to one side. He was removing a tire when Bonnie and Clyde came along in a brown Ford that they had stolen in Kansas. Just as they slowed down, Hamer, who had his men hidden on the other side of the road, gave orders to fire. They hit their target.

When newspaper reporters arrived and asked for comments from Hamer, he said, "Now, here's the boss. I've been acting on his instructions. If any statement is to be given out, he is the one to make it."

Simmons' book contains a full description of the events leading up to the ambush and part of this column is in his words. However it was taken from a booklet, "Lee Simmons; Famous Grayson County law enforcement officer - Sheriff, then head of the Texas Prison System" put together by John Crawford for Grayson County Frontier Village. While Simmons' book is available only on Amazon.com, Crawford's booklet that contains Simmons' account of the ambush is available at the village museum. Dan Bray had loaned Crawford his prized copy of the book.

After Wednesday's column on Simmons' life was published in the Herald Democrat, I received an e-mail from Patti Chapman Olmstead, his granddaughter. Patti said that all her family has copies of the book and she had read it several times. One of her children is named after her grandfather and some other family members have Lee as a middle name, she said.

In my Lee Simmons file I also found an undated letter written by Mrs. Nolene Simmons Chapman, Patti's mother, who talks about her father and her mother. She said that Simmons began writing his book four years before his death and that he died while working with the publisher in Austin on Oct. 12, 1957, just nine days before the book was published. His daughter said "He leaves a moral in the book to finish what you start." She said that all royalties of "Assignment Huntsville" go to charity.

Simmons' wife, Nola Stark Simmons, died Jan. 2, 1953. "It is said you have to be dead to be a hero," Mrs. Chapman wrote, adding, "I consider both my mother and my father heroes."

DONNA HUNT is a former editor of The Denison Herald. She lives in Denison and can be contacted at d.hunt_903@yahoo.com.