Caroline Bryant
Features Editor
Deep in the McKay Archives Center is a shelf of old Interlachens – back when they were the school yearbook – depicting the various events at Florida Southern College each academic year. If you pick the 1998 Interlachen from the shelf and turn to pages 98-99, you’ll see a band of adventurous faculty members in canoes.
While the yearbook states that P.E. teacher Sam Luce made canoeing a class credit for students in 1947, it slowly evolved into an informal club for FSC students and faculty members. The club would go on day and weekend trips to different bodies of water around Florida. Luce was retired by 1998, but he would join trips now and then.
Faculty regulars at this time were current History Professor Dr. Mike Denham, former Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Social Sciences Division Dr. Richard Burnette, former Director of Food Services David Leap, his wife and former Director of the Career Center Marsha Leap and former Head of Citrus Tom Mack. Others joined from time to time.
All of them were experienced canoeists. M. Leap, who grew up in Americus, Georgia, learned how to flip back a sinking canoe when she was a Girl Scout. She joined a canoe group when she attended Georgia Southwestern State University and fell in love with the rush of the water.
When she joined the FSC faculty in 1988, she attended her first canoe trip for students led by Burnette. She and her husband quickly became chaperones on most weekends, introducing students to the sport of canoeing.
“We had a lot of international students, Japanese students, and a lot who had never been in a canoe before, so he really enjoyed taking that group out to experience things they have never experienced before,” M. Leap wsaid.
These trips were more leisurely since they were for beginners. However, when it was just faculty, M. Leap said they got caught in wild adventures.
The Black Water Creek Expedition of 1994
The grandness of its name lives on in the tale. The trip included Denham, Burnette, the Leaps, former biology professors Dr. Margaret Gilbert and Dr. John Haldeman, former secretary of the business department Linda McHenry and her son.
With four canoes, the eight marched towards the water. But when they put in, the water was “raging,” as Denham described. The water was so rough that three out of the four canoes spilled over. Denham’s canoe, specifically, floated down the water horizontally, crashing into a tree. The water pushed the canoe onto the tree with so much force that Denham and his partner couldn’t escape. They had to abandon the canoe and get it later.
After constantly toppling over, the gang exited midway down the creek. When they escaped the water, they dragged their canoes through cow pastures to return to their vehicles. Because almost everyone lost control of their canoe, M. Leap said most of their stuff vanished in the water. Burnette was the only one to return with his belongings, including a pack of cheese crackers he shared with the starving group.
While M. Leap stayed behind, a group decided to go back and rescue Denham’s canoe and McHenry’s son Jeff, who had gone missing. The group found Jeff in a tree.
“A group of people went in to go find Jeff, and the river had come to a T and the water was going one way and another,” M. Leap said. “And where there was a T, there was a lot of debris…and Jeff’s canoe was going so fast that his canoe went under that debris and he had grabbed onto a tree limb so that he wouldn’t go with it…he climbed up the tree when they found him.”
The weekend’s chaos was so memorable that Burnett made trophies to honor his survivors.
“So, we call that the Black Water Creek Expedition,” Denham said. “And Burnett made a big deal out of it, he really had fun with it. He made paperweights for all of us with a little bronze plaque on the paperweight that said, ‘Survivor of the Black Water Creek Trip,’ and had our names on there and had the date.”
Overnight trip to Lakeland, Georgia
The usual group, with tag-along former Dean of Men Ben McDaniel, his wife Kathy McDaniel, former Director of Student Activities Donna Koewler, her husband David Koeweler and M. Leap’s father, drove across the Florida-Georgia line to Lakeland, Georgia.
Despite the occasional waterfall and alligator, what made it harder was that no one could see.
The trip started in the dark. So, when the group heard gunshots they couldn’t see, they feared they were traveling into them. As they floated closer, they noticed a young man in what M. Leap predicts was in his mid-30s holding a gun and shooting snakes in the water. Luckily, there was an island full of cypress trees that divided the water so they could sail around the gunman. However, the other side of the island was narrow.
“As we went beside that cypress, it was not very wide on that side. People wanted to put their hands on the island, and it was filled with snakes,” M. Leap said. “Snakes had crawled up on this little island and I have never seen that many snakes before…we were looking up in the trees making sure no snake was going to fall in our canoe.”
But the snakes didn’t scare them off. It filled M. Leap with adrenaline.
“It was times like that that made it really exciting, and your heart was beating and your blood pumped really fast that made it kind of fun.”
Other Trips
Denham’s favorite river was the Hillsborough River. Near the river was a park called Crystal Springs. Though it was closed, Denham and crew would put out at Crystal Springs to head towards Hillsborough River. The beginning was challenging, paddling through swamps and dams. Once they arrived at Hillsborough River State Park, they traveled down six to seven miles, spilling over when they approached the rapids.
He also loved Rainbow River. For the trip, they drove to a small town named Dunnellon, just west of Ocala. The drive was around two hours – a two-hour trip worth the view.
“The water was as beautiful as you can imagine. It is one of the most beautiful places on Earth…it’s clear, you can see like 100 feet down, there are springs along the way.”
Other destinations Denham visited with the group since 1991 include Manatee River, Peace River and Alafia River – Burnette’s favorite. An avid fisherman, Denham sometimes brought his pole, hoping to catch something during a more leisurely trip.
“Through, Dr. Burnett and some of the other folks, I was introduced to all of these beautiful spaces in Florida,” Denham said.
The End of an Era
After the story about the Black Water Creek Expedition got out, the school worried for the future, especially for student trips. They told the group that their adventures were an insurance group and they needed to stop.
Though M. Leap understood the school’s duty to protect their students, she felt the faculty always did their best to keep students safe during student trips.
“We tried to keep our stories quiet because we didn’t want to scare people. We didn’t want the administration to feel like we were being reckless,” M. Leap said. “We weren’t necessarily being reckless, we were looking for an exciting canoe trip and exciting challenge. And we made sure we weren’t taking students on anything really dangerous.”
So, when the trips came to an end, M. Leap bought two out of the 12 Grunam canoes they used to borrow from the school. After using them on the lake near her house, she donated them to a local Boy Scout troop after D. Leap passed away in 2006.
After the group shut down, Denham and Burnette continued to go on trips by themselves, unaffiliated with the school. However, Burnette soon grew old and decided it was best to stop canoeing.
“It broke his heart that he couldn’t go anymore,” Denham said. “It just got to where we didn’t go anymore because I think his kids got concerned about him getting out there and he understood that he just couldn’t do it anymore, so it all kind of fell out of place.”
Denham and he remained friends until Burnette’s passing last spring. At his funeral, Denham brought pictures from their canoeing trips and showed them to M. Leap and his family. M. Leap cried.
Currently, Denham is the only faculty member from the infamous canoe club that remains at FSC. Yet, hopefully, through this story, their legacy will exist in the FSC community forever.
