By Jack M. Willis
Journal Correspondent

Lyle Malloy is a reformed carpenter, turned prison counselor, and organic farmer with a mission, who takes life with calm good humor.

He was born in Tennessee, but his folks split up soon thereafter and he went to live with his mother in New York State. He finished high school, made a run at college a couple of times and then took up the trade of carpentering. Meanwhile his father had relocated to Caldwell Parish, Louisiana, and one day Lyle decided to look him up. They didn't get along too well, so Lyle moved to West Monroe and went back to carpentering.

One day he was up on a ladder, operating a chain saw, attempting to remove a limb from a tree which was protruding into the area where they were to add a new addition to a residence. The limb broke and kicked back, knocking Lyle off the ladder. He went in one direction and the saw went in another. When he landed he broke both ankles, jammed some vertebrae in his back, with the residual after affects of the accident leaving him handicapped for life. He was only 30 years old.

Meanwhile Lyle had gotten involved in attending some Full Gospel churches in the West Monroe area during his rehabilitation period and started volunteering for mission work.

In 1980 Lyle and his wife relocated to Caldwell Parish, and rented a cabin near the Locks and Dam on the Ouachita River north of Columbia, Louisiana. Then in 1981, George Fluitt, a real estate developer from Monroe, sold them the land where he now resides at a bargain. He managed to get financing for the home he lives in now, and with his limited walking ability abilities began clearing out the brush around his house, just as he had done his house site.

There happened to be a logging contractor living about a mile up the road, so Lyle worked out a deal for him to cut the merchantable timber off the tract in exchange for some dozer work to clear out, and pile and burn all the debris left over from the logging operation.

By 1990 Lyle had started a ministry of sorts counseling inmates at the Caldwell Correctional facility near Clarks, eventually becoming the in-house chaplain. It didn't take long to figure up that even though he was reaping a host of blessings ministering to the inmates, his gas plus wear and tear on his automobile were eating him up.

Meanwhile he found out the soil on his newly cleared acreage was an acid type, with the land well drained and ideal for growing blue berries. He made some inquiries and found there was a Louisiana Blueberry Association. He ordered 600 blueberry cuttings from a nursery in North Carolina and began setting the cuttings out--300 on one half-acre plot and 300 on another half-acre plot.

He considers his blueberry operation as a type of ministry, and if there are people who are so poor they can't afford to buy them, he will literally give them what they care to pick, to carry home to put in their freezer, or to sell for some cash money. When he can get it, he charges $20 per gallon, and will readily share them by picking on halves. Malloy recently ran across some commercially packaged blueberries for sale in a local store in Columbia. He did the math, and based on their retail price they were demanding for their berries--to equally compete he should receive about $78 per gallon.

Another desirable characteristic he is quick to point out is that all of his berries are organically grown--there are no fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides used or applied to his blueberry plots at any time. In fact, while there his phone rang and it was a representative from the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry stating that he would be at his ranch the next day to check for contaminants to make sure his organic proclamations are true.

In relating to his physically limited care-taking procedures, Lyle said, "When I mow my yard in the spring and summer and mulch leaves in the fall and winter, the mulch is applied directly to the blueberry bushes. And due to my limited financial abilities I'm not able to cultivate the plants, or hire it done like a full-fledged nursery or farm. But with the good Lord's help, I have a bountiful crop every year."

At first he started turning monies he earned from his berry sales over to Mercy Ministries in West Monroe, but later joined an international prison ministry known as KAIROS, and began contributing to this 20,000-volunteer member organization. KAIROS members are governed by an eight-member board based in Florida, and their sole mission is to bring as many prison inmates as posible in prisons around the world to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Lyle states that in longitudinal tracks kept on inmates professing to KNOW Jesus, only 12% of them were re-incarcerated. Lyle Malloy is very quick to point out that KAIROS is interested in the inmates having a spiritual experience, not a religious one. He added, "I've determined in my lifetime that all religion does is bring bondage."

When it was time to depart Blue Berry Hill, Lyle walked out to his car, reached into the rear seat of his car and blessed me with a pint of the best blueberry jelly I ever slapped on a cathead biscuit. I had the new treat for supper that night.

If you want to partake of some excellent blueberries, while in season, and bless a viable ministry, proceed westerly out of Grayson on Louisiana Hwy. 126 for 12 miles and you'll "find your thrill on Blue Berry Hill."

Back