Malcolm Edward McMillin

Malcolm E. “Mac” McMillin passed away peacefully early Wednesday morning after a long illness. Mac was born in 1944 in Natchez, Mississippi to John West and Clara Cupit McMillin. He attended Natchez-Adams High School, where he was a bit of a troublemaker and in danger of failing. Then Natchez Mayor Troy Watkins and a local doctor took an interest in “Mousey,” as he was known to his friends, and urged him to drop out of high school and join the Air Force in 1963. He often joked that he took his senior trip to Vietnam. Between tours, Mac and his high school sweetheart Delores Lott eloped. After completing three tours of duty in Vietnam, Mac returned to Natchez in 1966, and he and Delores started their family.

Mac and Delores moved to Jackson in 1969. In 1971, Mac was one of approximately thirty men selected from a pool of 632 applicants to go through the Jackson Police Department’s training academy. During his time with JPD, Mac was instrumental in establishing the Department’s first crime watch program and was the founder and first president of the Jackson Police Officer’s Association. For his work in establishing the union, Mac and another officer were “rewarded” with ninety-days off without pay related to the “Fish Caper” incident. With the help of his friend, attorney Ed Lobrano, Mac was later exonerated and awarded back pay. He also worked to establish the Crime Stopper’s program and was selected Patrolman of the Year in 1983, receiving the prestigious Billy Hickman Award. While Mac was working for the Jackson Police Department, he managed to earn his degree at Mississippi College in Clinton, with the help of his good friend, history professor Eddie Akin.

Beyond Mac’s work with the Jackson Police Department, his life in public service included stints as Hinds County Constable, Administrative Assistant to the Parole Board, and “Door Gorilla” for the George Street Grocery. Through those endeavors, Mac remained active with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW Local 480) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (Local 891). He was also a Master Mason at Hinds Lodge #628 F&AM Masonic Lodge, Raymond, Mississippi.

When he ran for Sheriff in 1991, Mac he did so with the belief that there was more to being sheriff than just filling up the jails. As sheriff, he expanded the Penal Farm, Patrol Division, K-9 Unit, Narcotics Unit, and expanded and modernized the Sheriff’s Department Reserve Unit, requiring volunteer deputies to receive training and certification. Mac also established a DUI Unit, Juvenile Unit, and Mounted Patrol.

Mac believed in law and order, but also in grace and second chances. He took pride in the programs he established that helped the men and women housed in the jail, including GED/Adult education programs, narcotics and alcoholics anonymous, the Second Chance Choir, and the Hinds County Penal Farm Firefighting Unit (Firefox). Mac also utilized inmate labor to help the community, assigning work crews to clean up streets and allowing trustees to work for local non-profits, including Habitat for Humanity, Stewpot Community Services, the Boys and Girls Clubs, Willowood, New Stage Theater, and numerous other community service organizations. He participated in and assisted with so many projects with the Junior League of Jackson that the ladies made him an honorary member – and they gave him the t-shirt to prove it. Mac was particularly proud of the men, women, and youth whom he encountered who made the most of the second chance he believed everyone deserved.

Mac also enjoys the distinction of being the only person to simultaneously hold the offices of both Hinds County Sheriff and Jackson Police Chief.

Mac received the 2010 Volunteer of the Year award from the National Philanthropist Society. He was also honored as Mississippi College’s Alumnus of the Year in 1994.

Mac was elected to five terms as Hinds County Sheriff. After leaving the Sheriff’s Department in 2011, Mac, an outspoken Democrat, was appointed by his friend, Governor Phil Bryant, to Chairman of the State Parole Board in 2012. Mac retired in 2013.

In addition to motorcycles, old cars, dogs (especially his dachshund Max), and children, Mac also loved the arts – literature, photography, music, and theater. He was an accomplished local actor, appearing in sixteen productions at New Stage Theater over a span of thirty years. His last appearance at New Stage was as Big Daddy in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” a role he had played thirty years earlier on the same stage.

Mac was preceded in death by his parents. He is survived by his wife of fifty-one years, Delores Lott McMillin and his three children and their families: Malcolm Christopher McMillin, wife Caroline, and their sons, Conner and Cooper of Madison; Andrew McMillin, wife Kate, and their children Ian and Edy, of Jackson; Mollie Thompson, her husband Zach, and their children Charley and Lottie, of Raymond. He is also survived by his sister, Joanne Dukes of Jackson, his “red-headed step-child” Steve Pickett of Raymond, numerous nieces and nephews, dear friends, and his Godson, Aaron Hale.

Of all his accomplishments, Mac was proudest of his long marriage to Delores and of the family they started together. Mac was fun, had a wicked sense of humor, was full of grand ideas, and filled up every space he walked into. He never backed down from doing what he believed was right or from an opportunity to help his friends or strangers. His children were frequent recipients of his grace and forgiveness, and especially his unconditional love. Mac’s personal and professional lives were guided by one of his favorite verses from Micah 6:8, “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Mac was a long time and faithful member of St. Columb’s Episcopal Church in Ridgeland. Services for Mac will be Monday, December 26, 2016, at St. Columb’s at 12:30. Visitation will be at the church from 9:30 a.m. to noon.

If you wish to honor Mac’s memory with a donation, please consider Stewpot Community Services or the Iona House of St. Columb’s food pantry, or your favorite charity.