Hannes Zacharias is a Professor of Practice at KU's School of Public Affairs and Administration. His 35-year career in local government concluded as Johnson County Manager, Hannes has spent 45 years paddling rivers, including the Colorado through the Grand Canyon, 1,000 miles on the Missouri, and down the Arkansas River. He traveled the Arkansas, the county's sixth-longest and explored its history in westward expansion as well as uses for transportation and irrigation. His river insights were gained from two solo kayak adventures taken down the Arkansas River, one in 1976 and again in 2018, following a drop of water from the headwaters at Tennessee Pass in Colorado to the Mississippi and on to the Gulf of Mexico.
