payson kennedy: whitewater legend
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Biography of Payson Kennedy and his founding of the Nantahala Outdoor Center , North CarolinaTRANSCRIPT
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Whitewater Legend
Payson Kennedy
Payson Kennedy is founder of the
largest whitewater outdoor center in
the U.S.
Stuntman in the movie Deliverance,
slalom and downriver competitor,
outdoor guru, globe trotter, he has
been a leader and a source of
inspiration to the thousands of
people he’s guided and worked with
throughout the years.
Thirty-one years after starting the
Nantahala Outdoor Center and in his
70th year, Payson is still intent on
taking risks, exploring the world, and
facing the challenges of living in the
present moment.
A true whitewater legend.
Whitewater Legend
Payson Kennedy“An Invitation to Share a Life Adventure”
Text by Bob Beazley
Photography courtesy of NOC
“An Invitation to Share a Life Adventure”
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“We would like to find a few individuals or families interested in
sharing an unusual adventure in an alternative lifestyle. Last summer our
family with the help of about eight young people operated the Nantahala
Outdoor Center. Since that taste of a different style of life we have found it
difficult to readjust to life in the city, our jobs in large impersonal
organizations, friends scattered about in a population of thousands, and
never-ending driving from activity to activity in urban traffic.We find our
thoughts constantly returning to the Nantahala and the kind of life that
might be possible there.”
-Excerpt from first NOC newsletter-
The year was 1972.
U.S. President Nixon
was desperately
trying to end the
Vietnam War, white-
water had its debut
as an Olympic event
in Munich and
Payson and Aurelia
Kennedy, living in
Atlanta at the time,
had just made a
decision that would
alter their lives fore-
ver and have a pro-
found influence on
the world of white-
water. Payson deci-
ded to leave his
tenured position at
Georgia Tech, Aurelia left her teaching job, and they sold their house and moved
with their four children to start an outdoor center on the Nantahala River. Their
friend Horace Holden had just bought a 14 unit motel on the Nantahala called the
Tote and Tarry. It came with a restaurant and souvenir shop. He asked Payson and
Aurelia if they would like to manage it. Payson had been considering a career chan-
ge to outdoor recreation and found the offer extremely exciting. Their colleagues
in Atlanta thought they were crazy. It was too big a risk. Whitewater as a sport
was still in it’s infancy in the U.S. and there was no indication at the time that it
was going to grow rapidly.
In 1972 the first year of NOC operation, the number of employees was about 10:
The Kennedy family, Jim Holcombe, some scouts from Payson’s troop in Atlanta and
a few other friends and locals. By 2002, the number of employees had climbed to
over 600. In 1972 the number of people the NOC took rafting down the Nantahala
was about 800. In recent years, NOC’s busiest single day on the Nantahala comes
close to that at about 600. In 2002 NOC guided over 100,000 rafters on six diffe-
rent rivers in the southeast. “When we started NOC there was no business plan, no
marketing, and little capital. There was just this belief that we could make it work.
I found it so incredibly energizing and exciting, that’s why I wanted to make a
change… I kind of had this theory that if you were that much caught up in it, you
could make it successful. You might make mistakes but if you could keep working
at it you could figure out how to do things. So I was pretty confident. Relia was
a little more nervous.” At the time of writing their first newsletter, the Kennedy’s
couldn’t have imagined in their wildest dreams where their risky career change
would eventually lead.
If there is one thread that runs through Payson Kennedy’s life that might give us
a clue as to the success of NOC and of Payson himself it is his love of taking risks.
However, if it were that simple there would be far more success stories, as the world
is full of risk takers. For Payson, taking the risk is only the first step. The other
essential piece is committing himself 110% to making it work. Once the initial leap
of faith has been made he focuses on all the reasons it can work rather than why
it can’t. In essence it is like paddling a rapid. You keep your vision focused on
the clean line rather
than the obstacles
you are trying to
avoid. With enough
hard work and focus
on the goal over
time, you will even-
tually achieve suc-
cess. It sounds
basic enough. Yet as
you talk with Payson
and observe him
working you find the
concept has a lot
more depth and a
spiritual Zen like
quality to it. “I love
getting into that
state when you are
right on the edge of
your ability, of what
you think you can do. You forget about it and just do it without worrying about
the risk, who’s watching, or what the consequences are. I find that I perform
beyond my usual ability. I am completely focused, thinking about nothing but what
I am doing right in that moment.” He describes it as the flow state. It is a state
we have all experienced at certain times in our lives. Athletes, musicians, dancers,
artists, fisherman, mystics, monks and mechanics all describe it in their own lan-
guage, the essence of which is a one pointed focus of total absorption in whate-
ver you are doing. Time seems to disappear. Mundane concerns like fatigue, hun-
ger, and boredom fade into the background and in their place we experience a sense
of well being characterized by euphoria, energy, enthusiasm, exhilaration and exci-
tement. These 5 Es are perhaps Payson’s favorite words and ones that come up in
conversation time and again when he tries to explain who he is, what his life is
about and how it shaped NOC.
Kashmir, India 1988
often you see the president out digging ditches to lay
a new sewer line. It made me always want to give
100%…” Payson believed in leading by example and
spent time working in each department from rafting
to grounds maintenance to the reservations office.
From his own experience and extensive reading on
the subject, Payson also knew that providing the right
level of challenge for the staff was one of the key ele-
ments to creating the flow state and encouraging
peak performance. In terms of the everyday workings
of NOC, this meant minimizing systemization so staff
had the ability to think on their own and make per-
sonal decisions rather than learning and acting by
rote. Payson believed that employee ownership too
would encourage staff to strive for peak performance.
In addition to creating conditions conducive to the
flow state, he also aimed to make NOC a place where
people wanted to live and work for years, not just a
season or two. These goals led to a series of initiati-
ves that started with staff housing in 1975, and, over
the years, evolved into stock ownership, health insu-
rance, vacation and sick pay, self-awareness works-
hops, book discussion groups centered on self-aware-
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He says he first experienced this flow state
in a religious setting. In his early college years he
considered becoming a minister. However, the more
he studied philosophy and religion the more he found
“insurmountable obstacles” in the form of irreconcila-
ble questions that would have made it difficult to
devote his life to religion. He also found that being
in the outdoors, hiking, caving, climbing and padd-
ling enhanced this flow the most. “When I get into a
new project I get pretty enthused and tend to forget
the downside and look mainly at the possibilities.
That was what had impressed me so much with padd-
ling. We might drive in a weekend up
to West Virginia and back for a race
and drive all night long to get back.
could have seemed incredibly unreaso-
nable and tiring, just too much, but
we were so energized that it was fun
and exciting. We could do without
sleep and just keep going.”
Ultimately, whitewater grew to be his
outdoor cathedral; it is where he enga-
ges this connection to life the fullest.
Payson’s life has been a
quest to spend as much time in the
flow as possible. Over time he has
developed the ability to reach this
state in more and more activities, from
reading a financial statement to terra-
cing the hill adjacent to his cabin. His
vision for NOC was to create a center
for excellence, but more than that, a
place where people could come and
work together in the flow state. He
believed if the staff members at NOC
were reaching the flow state in their
life and work; it would deeply affect
not only them but the guests as well.
People who were not experiencing the
five E’s in their lives and work at home
would feel the vibrancy and enthu-
siasm at NOC and want to return again
and again. To this end, he tried to
create conditions at NOC which would foster this state
and result in staff members performing at their peak
ability. When looking at the changes and develop-
ments Payson encouraged at NOC through the years it
is clear that every step was made with this goal in
mind. Shane Benedict remembers, “It was wild to
come to NOC as a 23 year old river bum and have the
president of the company recommend the book Zen
and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to help make
you a better raft guide. Payson’s attitude inspired me
to look at everything I did in a different way. It’s not
ness and the flow state, and a very flexible work sche-
dule to accommodate racers and explorers.
It worked; his vision created a fertile
ground for people of like minds to work and live toge-
ther in an environment that was both challenging and
fulfilling. Over the years NOC attracted a virtual who’s
who in the whitewater world. Numerous Olympic and
National team members have worked at NOC. The list
of international whitewater expedition explorers is
just as long. Working at NOC inspired countless peo-
ple to create lifestyles for themselves centered around
whitewater. Many former NOC staff have gone on to
establish their own companies in
outfitting, instruction, and equip-
ment design and production.
As Payson hoped it would, the atti-
tude of the staff rubbed off on the
guests as well. NOC’s explosion of
growth in the 70’s and 80’s was lar-
gely due to word of mouth from
NOC “addicts”. The guests were
brought back time and again by the
atmosphere at NOC and also by the
technical expertise present there.
Payson’s enthusiasm for teaching
and openness to new ideas esta-
blished NOC as a hotbed for inno-
vation and creative thought about
all aspects of whitewater sports.
Many of the current techniques in
river safety, rafting, and whitewa-
ter instruction were developed at
NOC.
Payson’s love of adventure and
commitment to staff led early on to
the beginnings of the NOC
Adventure Travel program. Payson
saw this as another way to keep
good staff around by providing
work in warmer climates during the
NOC winter. In 1976, The River of
Ruins trip on the Usumacinta River
in Guatemala became NOC’s first adventure travel trip.
As with all authentic adventure travel, the trip had its
share of character stretching incidents. “An earthqua-
ke closed the Guatemala City airport so we had to fly
into Belize and figure out how to get the gear out of
customs and overland to Guatemala. The government
made us take a customs officer with us to the border
to make sure we didn’t sell any gear before we got to
Guatemala. When we got to the border, our driver
Jimmy was waiting with his truck ‘Sugar Baby’.” The
adventure far from over they were also forced to spend
Racing slalom and the Nantahala
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one of the nights floating on the rafts because they
misjudged how slow the current was on the upper
river.
In 1978 Payson traveled to Nepal for the
first time to explore rivers with Don Weedon, an NOC
guide who lived in Nepal at the time. Nepal had a
profound effect on Payson. He gave up leading the
Usumacinta trip to start
leading trips in Nepal in
1979. It was an ambi-
tious undertaking consis-
ting of a two week trek
into the Lang Tang area
followed by a nine day
trip on the Sun Kosi
River. Over the years the
treks and rivers have
changed but Nepal
remains Payson’s favorite
trip. After one of the
trips, he stayed and
explored Asia for six
months. Part of this
time was spent furthe-
ring his investigations of
the flow state in a one
month retreat at the Kopan
Monastery in Katmandu
meditating and studying
Tibetan Buddhism.
Payson’s life before NOC
was as full and varied as
his life afterwards. He
was born in Atlanta in
1933. His first paddling
experiences were as a
cub scout in 1942. This
lead to overnight trips in
northern Georgia and
water sports merit bad-
ges at Camp Pioneer.
Those were the days of
wood and canvas canoes
and running rocky rapids
was not encouraged. In high school he met an attrac-
tive woman at the church social group named Aurelia.
At the time she was 12 and he was 14; they married
seven years later in 1954. He had just graduated from
Emory University with a degree in philosophy and was
getting ready to enter the Army counter intelligence
corp. As a wedding present Raymond Eaton, of Camp
Merriwood, paddled the Nantahala with Aurelia. At
water with Claude Terry and Doug Woodward.
In the late 60’s Payson was involved with a series of
events that fostered the growth of the sport in the
southern U.S. In 1967 Horace Holden started the
Georgia Canoe Association. In 1969 the Nantahala
started hosting races, the first in the Southeast.
About the same time,
southern author James
Dickey wrote his novel
Deliverance, a dark tale
of man’s primal side set
against the backdrop of
four friends on a canoe
trip in the southern
Appalachia. Payson,
Claude Terry and Doug
Woodward were hired as
consultants, safety men,
and stunt doubles on the
movie. “They hired a
Navy Seal at first to help,
but after he flipped a
raft and lost a camera,
they contacted Claude,
Doug and me to come
help.” While filming the
movie, Payson,
Claude and Doug
ran the Five Falls
section of the
Chattooga River,
mostly class 4 and
5, in Grumman alu-
minum canoes. This
was possibly the
first time the Five
Falls had been run
successfully tandem. Another tricky scene
involved swimming down the rapid just above
Deliverance Rock. This scene was later spliced
into the famous waterfall scene which was
actually filmed in the Tallulah Gorge. The movie
came out in 1972, NOC’s first year in business.
The movie stimulated public awareness of whi-
tewater sports and created new interest in
paddling rivers, especially the Chattooga.
Payson loves to compete. Anyone who has paddled
their raft next to him across Lake Tugaloo at the end
of the Chattooga section 4 can attest to this. His
crews rarely stop paddling, and if they do Payson
doesn’t. He was sad to see the implementation of
power boats to pull the rafts across the lake.
that time Nantahala Falls was rated a class V. Aurelia
was one of the first women to run it.
Payson’s paddling continued through col-
lege and the army. In 1958 he entered graduate
school at Emory and earned a master’s degree in
Sociology and Anthropology. After teaching in
Virginia for four years, he moved to Illinois to get a
M.S. in Library Science from the University of Illinois.
Most of his free time was spent raising his family of
budding paddlers with Aurelia and exploring rivers,
often as scout master for the local troop. In 1964 the
Kennedy’s moved back to Atlanta so Payson could take
a job with the Georgia Tech Library. He became the
faculty advisor to the Georgia Tech outing club and
started an explorer scout post specializing in white-
“…euphoria, energy, enthusiasm, exhilaration and excitement. These 5 Es are perhaps Payson’s favorite words…”
Payson as a stuntman in the filming of Delivrance
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It goes against his sense of self-sufficiency. He has
won six national championships in open canoe white-
water competition, and the master’s (over forty) in
kayak slalom and wild water. He has also won nume-
rous triathlons including open, masters and over fifty-
five classes. An avid biker he has done trips in
Ireland, England and New Zealand and
competed in the 100 mile “Bridge to
Bridge” bicycle race. In 1997 he was
inducted in the Emory University Sports
Hall of Fame.
His legacy of adventure tra-
vel trips is just as impressive. He has
lead trips all over the world and been
invited to participate in numerous
explorations. In 1988 the Tourism
Board of Jammu and Kashmir in India
invited Payson to explore rivers in the
Indian Himalaya, consult on the poten-
tial for whitewater trips, and train local
guides.
Several years later he was asked to lead
the whitewater portion of the first sour-
ce to sea trip down the Ganges in India.
In 1989 Payson put together a team for
the first International Rafting Rally put
on by Project RAFT (Russians and
Americans for Teamwork). The event
was held in a remote part of Siberia on
the Chuya River. Everybody camped out
on the river bank like one big family on
a river trip. For many it was an inspi-
ring meeting, fourteen international
river teams competing for peace in the
spirit of friendship and love of the river.
In the closing ceremonies Payson invi-
ted Project Raft to hold the event the
next year, 1990, at the Nantahala with
NOC as the host. The proposal was a
huge gamble. The NOC was not in a
remote area where everyone could just
camp out and cook over campfires, nor
was it in a city with ample accommoda-
tion available. Payson recalls, “At the
time I had no idea where everyone
would be housed, where the events
would be held, how the transportation
and logistics would be handled much
less who would fund it all.” What he did know was
what he felt. He and everyone else there were in the
flow. They had just pulled off the event in Siberia,
and with enough enthusiasm, hard work and planning
they could do the same thing at NOC.
What would become known as “Nantahala
90” was a major event that required flexibility and
tenacity. In the week before the event, twenty-three
teams from at least fourteen countries arrived at air-
ports up and down the East coast. The day before the
race was scheduled to start, the Nantahala was so
high due to persistent rain you could paddle through
the NOC parking lot. The next morning while the
teams were still in Atlanta for the opening ceremo-
nies, Payson got a call from the NOC. “Don’t bring
those teams up here today. We can’t use half the faci-
lities, we’re underwater. There is nowhere to house or
feed all those people.” With typical aplomb Payson
shrugged his shoulders and said “Well I guess we’ll
just have to see if the host families here in Atlanta
mind if we stay another night.”
Payson sees risk as a necessary and
mostly enjoyable part of life. If he had-
n’t taken many of the early risks at NOC
like moving up from Atlanta and leaving
the security of their city jobs behind he
would never be where he is today. Much
of his success is also the result of the
tremendous support he has had from
the incredible staff and friends that
have spent time at NOC. His wife
Aurelia is surely at the top of this list.
From the very beginning he acknowled-
ges it was their shared vision that sha-
ped the NOC concept. Her influence at
NOC can be seen as readily as his. She
has been his companion on countless
trips all over the world and continues to
share the adventures they now pursue,
whether it’s a Habitat for Humanity
Project (they’ve done five so far) or tra-
veling to Denmark to spend time with
their oldest son John and his family.
Now in his 70th year Payson has lost
little of his energy and thirst for chal-
lenge. He still guides regularly and
works out daily biking, paddling or
doing one of his “projects”. He compe-
tes often in whatever race is going on.
He says he feels a little guilty about not
having any great ambitions now that he
is retired. However, mention an adven-
ture like a bike trip through India and
his eyes light up like “when do we
leave?”. His grandson Andrew Holcombe
is a world class whitewater freestyle
competitor. He placed second at the
World Freestyle Championships this year
in Austria. When asked what he thinks
about this continuing of the lineage he
says simply, “I find it very satisfying.”
In the end perhaps what is most ama-
zing about Payson is that he appears ageless in his
enthusiasm for life and the task at hand. His present
project is using a wheelbarrow and shovel to build an
island in the pond next to their cabin. “I love it” he
says, “It puts me in the flow.”
The gas station in the sixties that would become the NOC store on the Nantahala River Bank
The same place in the eighties…
…in the nineties