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"Oh, I wasn't innocent; I did wrong and I accept it. I went to prison for hauling drugs... we are talking huge amounts - I was greedy, especially when I learned that one brick of cocaine paid the same as a whole truckload of pot," said James, who started smoking the weed when he was 14.
"It was a confidential informant who got me started with my first kilo," he said. "I was never caught with the drugs. My charge was conspiracy to possess and deliver."
In his personal usage, James had switched from marijuana to cocaine, up to a quarter ounce a day.
During the Texas drug round-up, many of those charged in the same operation got completely off because they had something to give the prosecutor, said James, who didn't.
"So I'm seeing these guys get off while I get a 12-year sentence. I went to prison an angry man - angry at the system, angry at God, angry at everything."
Prison life
Locked up in a federal prison outside of Dallas, James began a mission to disprove the Bible. To do so, he had to read it. So he read all 66 books, not once, not twice, but three times.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Navy captain, volunteering with the Church of Christ, kept visiting James in his tiny prison cell.
"I asked the captain, 'Why do you keep coming to see me?' and he said, 'I love you, man.'"
A Christian-based organization called Angel Tree also sent volunteers to the prison and assisted his three children while he was in prison.
Their unwavering, unconditional love got through to James. One night in solitary confinement he was reading the book of Deuteronomy in search of a discrepancy.
"But there wasn't one. I searched God's word, trying to make Him out a liar. Then it struck me. God had been faithful in His message to the people. 'How many times does God have to show them?' I cried out."
James chooses life
God spoke to James as he read Chapter 30, Verse 19: "I call Heaven and Earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and they seed may live."
That day James chose life and he chose it with a vengeance - a vengeance that intensifies each day.
"I sincerely thanked God for opening my eyes so I could see the former conditions of my life and mourn for my wickedness and repent.
"For all the harm I did in the drug business and all the hurt I caused, I am remorseful. I don't want to say the word 'sorry' because God doesn't make trash.
"I became convinced that my prison seclusion served me better than I would have been in the liberty of society," James said.
Released from prison
He wrote those very words to the judge who sentenced him. Over the years James continued to write the same judge.
"I think the judge could see the change in my heart," James said, explaining how his life began to turn around.
James was imprisoned four years when another man in his former drug operation was brought to trial, collaborating the testimony that it was a confidential informant who initiated the cocaine trafficking.
"Not only was it the same prosecutor, but it was the same judge, and that judge made the connection between us. So the judge enacted federal Rule 35, which allows him to depart from a sentence, and he let me out on probation."
Vision of Sylva
Right before James was released, a vision appeared to him of the place he needed to go. After the vision, he searched through maps at the prison library and pinpointed the spot at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains - Sylva, N.C. A few days later his mother told him she had purchased land in North Carolina.
"Where 'bouts?" he asked her.
"Sylva," she said.
With $400 in his pockets, an old Jeep Cherokee and what was left of an old machine that sweeps parking lots, James found his way from the plains of Texas to the mountains of Sylva in 1997.
"God led me to the right place," said James, who found his wife, Missy Lockhart, at Cullowhee Baptist Church.
Develops sweeping machine
Believing in the efficiency of his own sweeping machine design, James was amazed when "one of Sylva's bank presidents fronted me the money. Tim at Tim's Auto Parts gave me parts and told me to pay for them when I could. The people of Jackson County have been very good to me."
James then incorporated the ideas the late Sam Walton had suggested for improving his machine.
In prison James learned math, so he could work on machines, even learning how to run computer programs for the same reason.
"We are talking about a boy who graduated from high school illiterate," said James, who "thanks God for blessing me with a real mechanical intuition."
After several variations of screw jacks, hydraulic jacks, turnbuckles, cables, clamps, rubber flaps and brushes, along with increasing the rpm, James designed an industrial sweeping machine he calls the Tow-Vac. His patent is pending.
"I can manufacture the machine for $5,000. It retails for $10,000 and our closest competitor's lowest price is $60,000," he said.
Expands business
He started out with one contract for sweeping a shopping center here in Jackson County and has expanded to a full-time business with contracts in Buncombe and Henderson counties, Anderson, S.C., and the Cherokee Indian Reservation.
"I worked 24 months straight - without a day off. When you are an ex-con, you have to work extra hard to prove yourself," he said.
Hires ex-cons
"That's why I hire ex-cons. I know them better than anyone and I think I can reach them better than anyone," said James, who serves as their counselor as well as employer.
"I minister to them, too. God showed mercy to me and I am just trying to show that same mercy. I don't require that my employees accept Christ, but I do require that they stay clean and off drugs."
For a man who spent the first 30 years trashing his life, James now uses his trash-cleaning business to help others rebuild their lives.
Keeping Smokies clean
"It gives these ex-cons pride when they can go into a really dirty lot and make it look good. Our goal is to make these Great Smoky Mountains as clean as possible."
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Randall James of Cullowhee has a patent pending on his Tow-Vac sweeping machine, which cleans parking lots. An ex-con, James has expanded his business to Buncombe and Henderson counties, the Cherokee Indian Reservation and Anderson, S.C.; he employes ex-cons. "I know them better than anyone and I think I can reach them better than anyone," said James, who serves as their counselor, as well as employer. - Herald photo by Rose Hooper