Guy Maberry, 1960
No one remembers exactly why, but Gene Maberry and his friend Derald Linn (East ’59) decided to take a float trip down the Arkansas River. 
Derald and Gene had been friends through grade school, Cub Scouts, church, Boy Scouts and high school. They were in high school at the time, trying to figure out how to make the summer more exciting. They thought a float trip would be fun. One big problem, they didn’t have a boat. Even if they did, they had no trailer on which to get the boat to the water.
Another friend of both, Gary Wagner ’60, who also lived in the neighborhood, not only had access to a boat but also a trailer. They had talked about putting the boat in the river in the Great Bend area, but because of many factors, decided to cast off from south Wichita. Their goal was to float to Arkansas City which is very near the Oklahoma border.
Once on the river, the current swept them off on their great adventure. They had brought water and provisions for two or three days. Scouting had taught them how to camp and live off the land. Trouble is, they were on the water. The river was pretty low and they were often grounded on sandbars. They finally figured out how to identify the channel – the deepest part of the river and the part where the water was moving fastest. There were many bends in the river and they found the channel to be on sharpest part of the bend, so guiding with their oars, it was smooth sailing.
The first day, it sprinkled a bit but not enough to get too wet. They were hoping to see the sights while floating, but in most places the banks were steep and the only things visible were the banks and the trees and foliage above the banks. The scenery wasn’t as exciting as they had hoped.
As dusk set in, they decided to stop for the night. They pulled up to a large sandbar in the middle of the river and made cam, built a fire with driftwood and prepared their evening meal. Their decision was to spend the night on the sandbar. After pulling the boat to the middle of the sandbar, they rolled out their bed rolls in the boat. It wasn’t a large boat, but with one of their heads at the bow and the other at the stern, they managed to figure out sleeping arrangements. Because the boat was small, there wasn’t room for the rest of their provisions. They decided that these would be okay outside the boat. They climbed into their bedrolls and went to sleep.
As the sun shone down on their faces, they awoke the next morning. Much to their surprise, they were floating down the river. There was no sandbar and no provisions. It had rained hard the day before north of Wichita, and the river was much higher and the current much faster than when they had launched. They had no idea where they might be. Luckily, the oars were kept in the boat, so at least they could steer.
Their journey continued until that afternoon, when the
y encountered a dam or spillway, with a waterfall of six to eight feet. Having no idea of where they were, they guided the boat to shore and tied it to a tree so it wouldn’t float away. They decided that Derald would stay with the boat while Gene went in search of civilization. He was able to find a farmhouse nearby and persuade the owners to use their phone. (There were no cell phones in those days.) After finding out where they were, he called their other friend Gary, to come pick them up.
The farmer helped the boys get the boat out of the water and up to the house. He and his wife even fixed them some lunch and talked to them about their adventure. Gary arrived a little over an hour later. After loading up the boat, they headed for home.
They would never forget this adventure.
Editor’s Note: Many thanks to Derald Linn for sharing this story about his river trip with Guy Maberry. Their adventure turned out to be not so unusual. Stay tuned for another classmate’s hair-raising version of being washed downstream by the flooding Big Ark River, coming soon.
