Written by Noah Darnell
Twelve-year-old Ken McConnaughhay lay in a field daydreaming. His summer had been spent as a flagman helping crop-duster pilots spray huge fields in rural Arkansas. But this particular afternoon, he was dreaming of those airplanes flying just a few feet off the ground, seeing them fly their patterns in almost Zen-like precision and efficiency.He lay there in the grass waiting for the pilot to come seed the field when he thought to himself, “These pilots are having all this fun and getting paid for it!”It wasn’t long before young Ken and his father, who was a crop-duster, had bought a wrecked airplane for $650 and assembled it off the back patio at his home in Griffithville, Ark. – with no apparent way of getting it out of the backyard. Upon its completion, its wingspan was so great that multiple trees had to be cut down. Then, after a short flight from a neighbor’s field to the Searcy Airport, the antiquated aircraft was deemed worthy for flight – and so was Ken.On his 16th birthday McConnaughhay took his first solo flight — after driving to the Searcy Airport for his first solo drive. He received his Commercial Pilot License and was finally able to fly the crop-dusters he had daydreamed about years before.It was not long before McConnaughhay opened his own crop-dusting service named Ken’s Flying Service, which he sold in 1999.”I’ve always been one for original names,” McConnaughhay said tongue-in-cheek.Now 35 years and 15,000 flight hours later, McConnaughhay is flying the Harding University airplane.”My mission is to get my passengers to their destination in a timely and safe matter,” McConnaughhay said of his mission as a pilot for a university. “But as a pilot, every time I fly I try to do it better than the time before.”President David Burks said he appreciates this attitude because he has flown with him almost more than anyone else and speaks well of his experience with McConnaughhay.”I trust his judgment completely, and I am delighted to have him as our chief pilot,” Burks said.McConnaughhay is a certified instructor and teaches at the Searcy Airport. Additionally, he mentors young pilots from Harding University and helps them get experience in an aircraft. One such pilot is Harding student John Moore, his most recent protégé.”He always has something new to teach me,” Moore said. “He keeps me on my toes. Ken has a wealth of knowledge and experience, which always makes our conversations very interesting.”Ken McConnaughhay is one of the more respected pilots at the Searcy Airport, and he is often called upon to test pilot experimental or home-built aircraft for people at the airport. His expertise and experience in all sorts of aircraft have made his services invaluable for pilots who are trying to work out the kinks in their own planes.McConnaughhay now flies approximately 200 hours per year, but he once flew upwards of 800-900 hours in a single summer while crop-dusting. When asked how often he gets to fly, his first response is, “Not as often as I’d like to.””I truly enjoy flying,” he said, leaning back in his chair almost as if he’s daydreaming about those flights again as a 12-year-old boy. “There has never been a day when I dreaded it. There have been countless hours of fun and a few moments of sheer terror, but I’ve never felt like I’ve had a ‘job’ a single day of my life.”
