2025
FIBARK COMMODORE

Samantha Lane Bahn grew up in Washington, D.C. and spent her summers swimming and surfing in the ocean where she discovered her love of water. In 2002, Bahn visited the Arkansas Valley to raft with close friends who worked at Dvorak's Expeditions, and she fell in love with the sport of whitewater rafting. She returned the next year to train and become a raft guide at Dvorak's.

During her time as a raft guide, Bahn boated many western rivers including the Arkansas, Gunnison, Green, North Platte, Colorado, Chama, San Juan, and the New & Gauley Rivers in West Virginia. She was part of a new generation of female raft guides who were trip leading commercial trips on the Numbers and Royal Gorge sections of the Arkansas, as well as trip leading multi-day trips on desert rivers around the West. “Dvorak Expeditions boated so many rivers and different kinds of rivers. ... It became a really good way to see the country and the ecology and nature," she said. She met her husband Jackson who was also a guide at Dvorak's, and they married at Hutchinson Ranch in 2013. Since 2003, Bahn has paddled about 7,000 miles of rivers commercially and recreationally with her friends and family. In 2019 Bahn joined and helped develop the Ark Aces, the U.S. National Women's Masters competitive rafting team, with which she still competes. The team won Nationals in 2019 and 2023. Last summer, the Ark Aces traveled to Banja Luka, Bosnia to compete and place 3rd in Worlds, competing in slalom, downriver, sprint, and head-to-head races.

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Bahn served on the FIBArk board from 2009-2011, the last two years as president. She has also served as a board member of GARNA and the Longfellow Parents Association. Bahn earned a bachelor's degree in Spanish at Georgetown University and a master's in Ecological Teaching and Learning at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Currently, Bahn continues in her passion for teaching as a middle-school teacher at the Crest Academy. She has taught in the Salida School District for 18 years.

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At this point in her life, she said her favorite part of rafting is "sharing it with my own kids and boating with my team. ... I probably wouldn't have spent so much time on the river in recent years if it weren't for my team.” She boats year-round with her team and her family including her 9 year old daughter and 4 year old son. "I'm really honored and excited to celebrate our community, including the whitewater ... and especially the people." Bahn said