The riverboat captain is a storyteller. Captain Don Sanders shares the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This a part of a long and continuing story.
By Capt. Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune
My head is spinning while my mind’s a whirlpool. I’m supposed to come up with something new to write about for this Sunday’s river-related column. But today is Thursday, September 11, 2025, or 9-11, the 24th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center Towers in downtown New York City. I can’t think of anything else.
The exquisitely lovely morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, aboard the casino boat GRAND VICTORIA II, at Rising Sun, Indiana, Mile 506 on the Middle Ohio River, dawned filled with promise as an ideal day to cruise the 300-foot paddlewheeler on a perfectly gentle river.
My crew and I were less than an hour away from our watch change at 9 a.m., following our usual 12-hour shift. Soon, Captain John Leed would be relieving me. Captain Sandra Clark, my Bridge Mate, accompanied me in the pilothouse, some five stories above the calm waters of the Ohio, beneath a sapphire blue sky.
Unexpectedly, a radio call from Mate/Cap’n Roger Hilligoss, in the employees’ breakroom, below, within the hull, broke the silence: “Pilothouse, you got the television on?”
“Why’s Roger calling about whether we have the TV on or not? He knows we have orders from our Director, Tom Sanders, only to have it on to check the weather,” I thought before answering.
“Seems like a plane just hit one of the buildings in the World Trade Center,” Roger added.
“Better turn it on,” I said aloud.
And so, we did, along with millions of others, and became collective witnesses to perhaps the most significant moments in the 21st Century up to this present recollection, twenty-four years into the future from when Captain Roger radioed us to turn on the pilothouse television.
Mate Frank Jones soon joined his comrades in the wheelhouse, gathered around the small TV, watching the first building burn.
Seventeen minutes after the first aircraft impacted the North Tower, another commercial airliner smashed into the South Tower. From my desk at the back of the large pilothouse room, I thought, momentarily, that I was watching a replay of the first impact. However, as soon as the realization that a second airplane crashed into the towers, I, and the entire world, then understood that America was under attack.
After a few minutes, as soon as the initial shock subsided following what we had just witnessed, Captain Leed and Mate Jones silently left the pilothouse and began to lower the numerous national flags the GRAND VICTORIA II proudly displayed to half-staff.
Our world, within those few minutes, changed far beyond our immediate understanding, while the consequences of that fateful day linger on almost a quarter of a century later.
Twenty-four years passed as “but a moment in time,” as riverboat pilot and Bluegrass musician, Cap’n John Hartford might have said.
The GRAND VICTORIA II casino boat is still afloat where she was when the terrorists attacked the Twin Towers. Recently, however, the casino announced that its owners yearn to move to more profitable climes than the tiny town situated among cornfields far off the main highways and byways connecting potential gamblers in more urban settings.
The once-palatial paddlewheel riverboat lost its U.S. Coast Guard-licensed officers in 2012 when the company decided to permanently moor the vessel at a dockside without experienced, certified personnel on board.
Captain John Leed was last reported serving on board a Great Lakes ship of some sort. Cap’n Sandra, now married, pursues a personal life with her family far from the Middle Ohio River. Mate Frank Jones works as a case manager at an Ohio center for addiction treatment and relapse prevention.
Mate/Captain Roger Hilligoss and I are the only two from the pilothouse on 9-11 still living close to the GRAND VIC. Roger manages the IGA grocery within sight of the tall stacks of our former gambling boat. We see each other about every week, or so, when my wife Peggy and I stop by the store whenever we are in town.
Many friends and coworkers, like the river water flowing to the sea, have passed away since that fateful day when we watched history unfold on the tiny TV in the pilothouse.
For better or worse, the world has undergone some of the most eventful years in American history since then.
The 21st Century literally started with a bang that has resounded throughout its first quarter; however, I’m not about to attempt to make predictions for the second quarter. But I advise everyone to hang on tight —it’s bound to be one hell of a ride.
Whatever happens, let’s hope for the sake of the inhabitants of Planet Earth that whatever occurs will not have the consequences of those that happened on Tuesday, September 11, 2001.
May we remember the date, though, as my Cincinnati friend, Joy Scudder, so aptly said: “A memory sadly etched on our hearts and in our minds. And, yet, it was a time when we united as one.”
Captain Don Sanders is a river man. He has been a riverboat captain with the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and with Rising Star Casino. He learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a “machine” and became a captain in the USAF. He is an adventurer, a historian and a storyteller. Now, he is a columnist for the NKyTribune, sharing his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good.
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Capt. Don Sanders The River: River Rat to steamboatman, riding ‘magic river spell’ to 65-year adventure is now available for $29.95 plus handling and applicable taxes. This beautiful, hardback, published by the Northern Kentucky Tribune, is 264-pages of riveting storytelling, replete with hundreds of pictures from Capt. Don’s collection — and reflects his meticulous journaling, unmatched storytelling, and his appreciation for detail. This historically significant book is perfect for the collections of every devotee of the river.
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