{{Short description|Grand Canyon river running guide (1911–1992)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2023}} '''Georgie White Clark''' (1911–1992) was a river-running guide in the Grand Canyon. She was the first woman to run the Grand Canyon as a commercial enterprise, and she introduced several innovations and adjustments to the way that guides ran the Colorado River. In particular, she used large army-surplus rafts, often lashing together multiple rafts, to maintain stability in the large rapids. In 2001, the United States Board on Geographic Names renamed Mile 24 Rapid in her honor.<ref name="gcrg2">Grand Canyon River Guides, [http://www.gcrg.org/bqr/14-4/history.html ''"Georgie Rapid" Official at Federal Level''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060621033950/http://gcrg.org/bqr/14-4/history.html |date=June 21, 2006 }}. Retrieved December 30, 2006.</ref><ref name="treks">Grand Canyon Treks, [http://www.grandcanyontreks.org/georgie.htm ''Georgie White! Colorado River Rapid named for controversial river runner!''], November 30, 2001. Retrieved December 22, 2006.</ref>
== Early years == Born Bessie DeRoss in Oklahoma, she was raised in Denver, Colorado, from the age of nine. She married Harold Clark while still in high school and had a daughter, Sommona Rose, at the age of 17.<ref name="Nichols">Jeffrey D. Nichols [http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/utah_today/daredevilgeorgiewhiteranutahsgreatrivers.html ''Daredevil Georgie White Ran Utah's Great Rivers''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071022041248/http://historytogo.utah.gov/utah_chapters/utah_today/daredevilgeorgiewhiteranutahsgreatrivers.html |date=October 22, 2007 }}, August 1995. Retrieved December 22, 2006.</ref> She moved to Chicago for several years, then to New York City with her husband, finding office work at Radio City Music Hall, and divorced him not long after a cross-country bicycle trip in 1936. She was briefly married to James White.<ref name="Nichols" />
== The West and the Grand Canyon == Georgie and her daughter were close companions after her divorce from Clark, engaging in outdoor activities such as mountain and rock climbing, skiing, skating, and bicycling. In 1944, her 15-year-old daughter was killed by a hit-and-run driver while bicycling.<ref name="treks" /> Her "Royal River Rats" achieved some fame, being featured in Life Magazine, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and countless newspapers.<ref name="treks" /> At the age of 73, she could be seen holding her motor rig's tiller with one hand and a beer with the other, wearing a full-length leopard-pattern leotard.<ref name="Nichols" />
Following her death, those who examined her personal effects found artifacts which led some to speculate that White had, in fact, been Bessie Hyde, the woman who had vanished with her husband during a honeymoon float of the Grand Canyon in 1928. Rumors had floated that Bessie had killed her abusive husband and hiked out of the Canyon. Among White's personal effects were a copy of the Hydes' marriage license and a pistol in her lingerie drawer.<ref name="treks" /> However, river historian Brad Dimock and White's biographer Richard Westwood have discounted the rumor that White and Hyde were the same person.
The renaming of Mile 24 Rapid in her honor was controversial. Georgie's detractors were many; in addition, her friends would have liked to see a bigger, more prominent rapid named for her. Rapids such as Crystal and Granite were unlikely to be renamed,<ref name="gcrg">Grand Canyon River Guides, [http://gcrg.org/bqr/6-3/georgie.htm ''"Georgie’s Rapid" Project''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060721221102/http://www.gcrg.org/bqr/6-3/georgie.htm |date=July 21, 2006 }}. Retrieved December 22, 2006.</ref> and on October 11, 2001, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names followed the Arizona State Boards on Geographic and Historic Names and approved renaming Twenty-Four Mile Rapid as Georgie Rapid in a split 3–2 vote.<ref name="treks" />
Georgie was often criticized for her habit of disregarding customer safety. Her business had several dubious distinctions: the first rafting commercial fatality, Mae Hansen, aged 64, in July 1972; and the first injured person to be evacuated by helicopter from the Grand Canyon, Vernon Read, who suffered severe skull and spinal fractures on a trip in 1959. On August 25, 1984, river guide John Davenport watched as Georgie intentionally launched her boat into a dangerous position into Lava Falls Rapid (River Mile 179.4), and later reported she recklessly piloted her boat in "the worst example of gross incompetence I have ever seen.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ghiglieri|first1=Michael P.|last2=Myers|first2=Thomas M.|title=Over The Edge: Death in Gand Canyon|date=2001|publisher=Puma Press|isbn=0-9700973-0-1|pages=173–174|edition=both First and Revised}}</ref>
== Further reading == * DeRoss, Rose Marie (1970). ''Adventures of Georgie White, TV's "Woman of the Rivers"''. Gardner Printing and Mailing Co. {{ASIN|B000IK2KKK}}. * Westwood, Dick (1997). ''Woman of the River: Georgie White Clark, White Water Pioneer''. Utah State University Press. {{ISBN|0874212340}}. * Dimock, Brad (2001). ''Sunk Without a Sound: The Tragic Colorado River Honeymoon of Glen and Bessie Hyde ''. Fretwater Press. {{ISBN|1892327988}}. * Briggs, Don (1999). [https://web.archive.org/web/20110718041013/http://www.whitewatervideo.com/cgi-bin/WWVStore/Perlshop.pl?ACTION=thispage&ORDER_ID=389880736&thispage=DonBriggs.htm ''River Runners of the Grand Canyon''], VHS/DVD * Ghiglieri, Michael P. and Thomas M. Myers (2001). "Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon". Puma Press. {{ISBN|0970097301}}
== References == {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:White, Georgie}} Category:Early Grand Canyon river runners Category:1911 births Category:1992 deaths