Jim Thaxton, a renowned canoeist from Pendleton County, carries enough love in his heart to float a fleet.
One event in his long life could have ruined him and his entire family. Instead, his internal love for people and for his family and his legion of friends strengthened. Jim and his wife, Ann, have four children. The older ones are Lori Ann, 52, and James Thomas, 49. Then Glen, 39, and Sara Ann, 37. All have deep outdoor interests; three hold college degrees; and there are nine grandchildren.
“Three days after Glen’s 35th birthday in September 2016, he drove a school bus for Pendleton County and worked the canoe rental on the weekends,” Jim said in the hushed tone you hear from people about to experience a whirlwind disaster.
“On that Monday, Glen felt kind of congested—chest colds were going around—so he made a quick trip to Urgent Care in Highland Heights to get some medication,” Jim said.
Thaxton’s Canoe Livery and Paddlers’ Inn in Butler on the Licking River has been under Glen’s watchful eye for 15 years, five of the years following Jim’s retirement. Jim manages a competitive dragon boat racing team April through October. Jim and his wife, Ann, also enjoy traveling and camping. In the winter, Jim and Ann paddle and camp out.
In September 2016, though, no ideas were on camping.
“One of the nurses ordered an EKG. Later, feeling confident the congestion had passed, Glen stopped for a dozen White Castles on the way home. Then, he headed back to drive the bus. Before he hit the Pendleton County line, the nurse called,” Jim paused, identifying the instant when the storm hit.
A cardiologist at St. Elizabeth Ft. Thomas Hospital explained that Glen’s heart was pumping only 10 percent of the blood required to keep a body alive.
No wonder Glen felt congested.
No wonder he felt tired.
The wonder was that the younger Thaxton drove himself to the hospital and then home.
Late that September afternoon, Glen was helicoptered to the University of Kentucky Gill Heart & Vascular Institute in Lexington. Jim and Ann drove a tense 80 miles to the medical center.
The cardiac team reported that Glen would be unlikely to live to December without a new heart. Tension tightened in Jim Thaxton’s muscular back. Ann shivered and cried.
What could they do? Hearing that their son may face only 45 days—1,080 hours—to live caused dreadful thoughts to race through their minds. Was Glen in pain? How would they care for Glen’s two children? What about the canoe livery’s future? Or Glen’s job as a school bus driver? Jim’s duties as coordinator of the Northern Kentucky Heroin Impact Response Task Force? All of Ann’s support activities?
How could they care for Glen? What would they do if he died?
They thought and prayed. No quick answers came. Time passed. Glen lay in the hospital.
Incredibly, Glen survived to receive a heart transplant on the partly cloudy day of June 29, 2017. A 22-year-old man who had died of a heroin overdose was the donor of the undamaged muscle.
“Every day is a blessing,” said Glen, who has managed the family’s canoe livery and inn with his new heart since then. The business rests on a gentle bend in the north-flowing Licking River, not far from Falmouth. Often, the air is fresh, the sky bright blue.
Glen’s children—Marie Ashbrook Thaxton, 12, and Rohan Rorer Thaxton, 7—were present when he married Sara Remley on Nov. 21, 2020, just before Thanksgiving. Sara brought her two daughters, Caydence, 15, and Jaz, 11, to the beautiful river setting.
Glen’s voice is calm, clear, deep and controlled. He is trim like his father, nice-looking like his mother.
“There is a healing property Mother Nature brings to the body and soul,” he said. “I get along very well with my new heart.”
Glen exercises about 10,000 steps every day, except when the weather is good. Then he paddles. Through exercise and meditation, he regulates his heartbeat from around 75 beats per minute to nearly 127.
Love overflows in the Thaxton family stories.
Jim Thaxton met Ann Moore, a registered nurse, at old St. Elizabeth Hospital in Covington one day in the 1950s while visiting his mother there. Neither took much interest. About a week later, he saw her “skipping across the road in her civvies [civilian clothes] toward an apartment she shared with other nurses. I had an immediate change of mind.” They have been together ever since that sunny October day in 1957.
Decades later, Glen and Sara crossed paths when she arranged a 6-mile paddle in which Glen operated the shuttle van. He was enamored by her. He decided he would do anything for Sara, and “I totally friend-zoned her for the next year and a half,” he recalled. She even was hired to work the canoe livery.
“But here is the best part: A heart nurse came to my house every week planting the seed that I was going to get a new heart so I could fall in love again,” Glen explained about the months he spent waiting for his new heart.
After Glen’s first marriage ended, he questioned whether love would come his way again. In 2014 and ’15, many days were dark and gloomy. He was alone. But the world brightened when Glen’s new heart came in June 2017.
“Now, almost four years later, and look what love blossomed!” Glen said.
With the canoe livery in good hands, Jim and Ann now use Jim’s retirement time to train with the Kentucky Thorough-Breasts, a breast cancer survivor dragon boat racing team. The Thorough-Breasts’ boats are 12- to 15-passenger canoes with a large carved dragon mounted on the bow.
The Thaxtons’ dragon boats are flagships for Paddlefest, the large Ohio River paddle event usually held in early August. More than 2,000 paddlers pull about nine miles downriver. Paddlefest founder Brewster Rhoads said the event raises money for Adventure Crew, which offers outdoor experiences to children in the greater Cincinnati area.
Jim earned a master's degree in education from Northern Kentucky University. During his career, he directed the Three Rivers District Health Department and, between 1998-2009, developed a canoeing, kayaking and backpacking course for NKU. Ann was a nurse and part-time teacher and managed the canoe rental when Jim was away as executive director of the Professional Paddlesports Association. He held that position until 2005.
All the while, the Thaxtons operated the business and raised four children next to the Licking River.
For the Thaxton family, with more than 40 years on the Licking, the focus is on conservation and recreation—and togetherness. The family joyously celebrates Christmas, Easter and Halloween. Plus on June 29 each year, a special celebration takes place in honor of the implantation of Glen’s new heart.