Written by Kylie Akins
The morning was quiet as the four men slipped the 18-foot boat into the White River on Monday morning. Their spring break officially began as the rising sun burned away the early morning mist. The boat was ready for the long voyage ahead. Eighty-seven-year-old Chancellor Clifton Ganus took the wheel as his son, Dr. Cliff Ganus, Jim Woodroof and his son, Tim, settled into the cramped space of the ski boat in which they would spend the next four days.
With Harding’s classrooms emptied, the father-son foursome spent March 8 to March 11 traveling 700 miles by boat from Georgetown, Ark., to New Orleans, Chancellor Ganus’ hometown.
“Dad [Chancellor Ganus] drove the whole way,” Dr. Ganus said. “700 doesn’t sound like a lot until you consider you’re going between 10 and 25 mph the entire way. And you’re also looking out for logs which you don’t see on highways here. It’s a different sort of adventure and intensity. He’s 87 years old. He’s remarkable.”
Chancellor Ganus read every wave with the skill of a weathered seaman, having taken this trip twice before in 1978 and 2001. At each gas stop, the men were met by Harding alumni and old friends who offered them transport to the nearest gas station and back.
The men camped at night, the Ganuses sleeping on the boat and the Woodroofs in a tent on the shore. Jim recalled the second night camping on the Mississippi River when the men bonded around a bowl of clam chowder and stories.
“We sat around the fire for about two hours in the dark with just the fire going with [Chancellor] Ganus telling us about the early days of Harding,” Jim said. “That was my favorite experience.”
Jim has known Chancellor Ganus since when they met at Harding in the 1970s and jumped at the opportunity to experience this adventure with him.
“I knew I would kick myself for the rest of my life if I didn’t spend that time with [Chancellor] Ganus,” Jim said. “I love him to death.”
Large barges and ocean-going vessels crowded the Mississippi as the boat drew closer to New Orleans, often forcing Chancellor Ganus to weave in and out of the bull waves the large boats created in their wake. When Chancellor Ganus asked his son Cliff what the most memorable experience of the trip was to him, he quickly answered, “Looking at Jim Woodroof’s face when he looked back and saw that big boat there.”
Arriving in New Orleans was the height of the trip, especially to Chancellor Ganus who was returning to his childhood home.
“One of the highlights would be when you get into the middle of New Orleans where you’ve grown up since you were 7 years old, and you look down Canal Street and look at St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Square where it all started and how it has spread out,” Chancellor Ganus said. “It’s just exciting to sit out in the middle of the river.”
The crew arrived in New Orleans Thursday evening just as the sun had sunk below the horizon and were met by Harding football coach Clay Beason. The entire group, exhausted from four days on the river, celebrated their successful trip with platters heaped high with French fries, catfish, shrimp, oysters and lobsters at Deanie’s, a seafood restaurant in the French Quarter.
Satisfied with their adventure, they returned to Searcy Friday morning, taking a much shorter route by car. Chancellor Ganus said he plans to take the trip again when he turns 90.
“It’s just fun to me to be on the water,” Chancellor Ganus said. “You don’t think of anything else, you don’t. You can’t. You gotta think of the river. It’s like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. You never get all the little boy out of you. Don’t care how old you are.”
