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The governor's race in the US state of Washington was one of those contests that was too close to call on election night. A statistical tie, the lead shifted back and forth in the weeks after the November election, but after a recount Democrat Christine Gregoire came out with the narrowest of victories. That, however, is being challenged in court and the uncertainty has made it hard for the governor to go beyond local Democratic circles in search of talent for her administration.

But wouldn't you know it, the first important out-of-state appointment that the new governor made went to a native of Panama.

Harold Clarke, born in Panama to parents of Antillean descent, has despite the uncertainty accepted Gregoire's offer to head Washington's prison system. God and the courts willing, he will assume that post at the end of February, moving from his present job as head of the Nebraska state prisons. It's a move from a system that incarcerates about 4,000 people to one that houses some 17,000, and from a predominantly Republican state to one where the two major parties are much more evenly matched.

Clarke, 53, worked his way up the ranks of the Nebraska correctional system, becoming its director in 1990. He will be, depending on how one cares to define such social constructs as racial and ethnic identity, the first black person, and the first Hispanic, to head Washington's Department of Corrections.

Being perfectly bilingual and having been a black man holding an important post in the government of a state with relatively few blacks are but two of the characteristics that brought Clarke national recognition for a job excellently done in Nebraska. Although as director he has been named as the defendant in his share of prisoner lawsuits, that state's prisons have one of the lowest rates of violence in the country. "He did a good job for Nebraska," Dwite Pedersen, a Republican member of the unicameral Nebraska legislature's Judiciary Committee told the Seattle Times.

Another qualification that may have helped Clarke on his way up the system in Nebraska was his athletic prowess. He has a black belt in karate.

In an interview with the Seattle Times, Clarke noted Washington's prison overcrowding and said that the state government is going to have to look at its sentencing laws and decide whether it's incarcerating the right people. "That's where it all begins. Are we locking folks up we're afraid of, or are we locking folks up we're mad at?"













Also in this section:
Panama Historical Society marks railroad's 150th birthday
A visit to Christ Church by the Sea
Panama's Girl Scout camp
Panama native named Washington prisons director

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