Marshall's Big Adventure with Rain, Flood Waters and a Helicopter!
Arizona is truly a place where strange things still happen. On Saturday, February 12, Marshall was supposed to be grand marshal of the Wickenburg Gold Dust Days Rodeo Parade but fate intervened in the form of a big rain storm. They asked him to come up early Friday morning to take part in a variety of ceremonies, and they put him up at the KL Bar Dude Ranch, located near the normally dry Hassayampa River. He arrived early Friday in a driving rainstorm, and it kept raining all day and night. He got up Saturday morning about six to find the river had run its banks, causing the guests and ranch hands to get busy moving their cars to high ground.
They found themselves marooned at the ranch by the river on all sides, but there was plenty of high ground so nobody was in real danger. Marshall’s manager, Kathy Collins, was staying in town went to work to find a way to get him into town for the parade. There wasn’t anything to do but wait around, so he gave roping lessons to the guests. Finally, about noon they told him to go to a high mesa about a mile from the ranch where they could land a helicopter. Marshall mounted a horse, grabbed his guitar, and rode out, arriving about the same time as the helicopter. He got off his horse and climbed on the chopper, which was piloted by a pretty young woman named, Maria Langer, chief pilot for Flying M Air in Wickenburg, who then gave him a tour of the historic Hassayampa River. Houses and cars had been swept into the torrent and taken downstream. It was a once in a lifetime experience to see a desert river running so high. The guests all had their video cameras out filming Marshall’s exit by horseback and helicopter. They’ll surely have some good pictures and stories to take home with them.
Marshall got back to Scottsdale in time to do a concert with State Balladeer, Dolan Ellis, that evening at the Kerr Cultural Center. They also had a matinee show the next day then drove back to Wickenburg to see if Marshall’s SUV was still around. By that time the river had gone down and things were almost back to normal. Marshall had a show the following night at the Elks Opera House in Prescott, so he barely had time to dry out and be on the road again.
One of Marshall’s books is titled, “It Always Rains After a Dry Spell,” and it sure did. There’s never a dull moment in the life of the Arizona State Historian.