Life of a Towboat Captain is July 8 program in Ferryville Chautauqua Summer Series

The Ferryville Tourism Council has announced the second of the four Chautauqua Summer Series programs for this season. Wednesday, July 8, Lee Hendrix will be conducting a presentation on his life as a tow boat captain up and down the Mississippi River.

The program will be held at the Ferryville Village Hall at 6:30 p.m. Treats will be available. There is no cost for this program, and a donation can will be out to help defray the costs of Ferryville Tourism events.

Hendrix grew up in the St. Louis area, and he became a deck hand on a tow boat in 1972. The river “bug” caught him, and he received his license to be a tow boat pilot just four years later. His long career includes teaching, developing curriculum for schools about the Mississippi River, and piloting casino boats in the Quad Cities area.

In 1993, Hendrix became the pilot for the passenger boat, the American Queen, and continued in that role for many years. He later was employed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a pilot of the largest tow boat in the world, the M/V Mississippi.

After his retirement from the Corps, he returned to the American Queen as a Riverlorian, a first-class story teller. He has since written a book about all of his adventures called “Peep Light: Stories of a Mississippi River Boat Captain”. Those books will be for sale after his program.