Engineer Memoirs
Opening bids for the first lock and dam of rhe Arkansas River Project, October 1962.
Charles Maynard, Little Rock District Engineer, second from left stands beside Brig. Gen.
Carroll Dunn, Southwest Division Engineer, and Lt. Gen. Walter K. Wilson, Chief of Engineers
Within a few weeks after I arrived there, I attended a meeting of the Arkansas River
Basin Development Association in Tulsa. At that meeting I met Senator Kerr and
Senator McClellan for the first time. Senator Kerr turned to me and said, "Well, young
man we're glad to see you here. We're glad to have a native of Arkansas available and
interested in this project. Your predecessor indicated that this could be completed by
1970. If you can complete this more quickly, I promise you that you can be governor
of Arkansas or Oklahoma, either one that you'd like."
I responded to the senator that my problem was not the desire to be governor of either
state-although I was an admirer of both-but that my real problem was determining
not whether the schedule could be beaten, but whether it actually could be
accomplished as General Fleming had outlined. My
effort would be to determine
what we could do to hold to his schedule.
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