Macon Magazine

On the one hand, summers along the Ocmulgee River haven’t changed much over the years. It’s always been a good place to strip down to shorts, get your feet wet, drink a beer and work on a good sunburn.

On the other hand, river life hasn’t been the same since 1981, when people last congregated by the thousands to participate in the aforementioned activities. In May of that year Macon witnessed the fourth and final running of the annual WMAZ Radio/Budweiser Raft Race, an event that defined an era in local summertime fun.

The raft race was essentially a floating frat party, albeit one with an old-school style. For men, the sunburns began at the shoulders, which is where their hair ended, quit at the hips, which was where their cut-offs began, and picked up again at the upper thigh, which was where fashion told them to apply the scissors to their blue jeans. Women, who were usually too skin-conscious to risk a sunburn, came equipped with the Coppertone products necessary for a Farrah Fawcett tan to match their Charlie’s Angels hairstyles.

The soundtrack included lots of Creedence Clearwater Revival tunes, blasted from loudspeakers atop the Spring Street Bridge.

The idea for the raft race came from Atlanta, where the Ramblin’ Raft Race had been held on the Chattahoochee since 1969. At its peak the Atlanta event drew 30,000 participants and 250,000 observers.

In Macon, beer wholesaler Bibb Distributing Company saw an opportunity to hold a similar event locally and recruited radio station WMAZ to help promote it.

Jim McLendon was sales manager for WMAZ at the time and one of the main organizers for the race, first held in 1978.

“We thought, ‘We’ve got a river, too, let’s see if we can make it work,’” said McLendon, now general manager of Cox Media. “We didn’t know if we’d have 50 rafts of 5,000 rafts.”