Manthey To Receive National Rivers Hall Of Fame Achievement Award
A childhood passion turned into an esteemed career for Capt. Joy Manthey and made her a trailblazer for women in the towboat and barge industry. A young girl from New Orleans with a dream, Capt. Joy, as she’s known to friends in the industry, charted her own course to earn her 100-ton operator’s license at 18 years old and a first class pilot’s license on the Lower Mississippi River from New Orleans to Baton Rouge at 21, a feat few women were pursuing in the 1960s and 1970s.
Recognizing her as a pioneer for women in the industry, the National Rivers Hall of Fame will honor Manthey, who now works as a mate/pilot for American Cruise Lines on the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, as a 2024 National Achievement Award winner. The award is the highest honor presented by the National Rivers Hall of Fame to individuals who are making significant contributions to America’s waterways.
One of her first experiences behind the wheel was when she was 10 years old on the mv. Mark Twain that docked alongside of the steamer President at the foot of Canal Street in New Orleans. In a 2023 article in The Waterways Journal, Manthey recalled the impact of the experience.
“I couldn’t see over the wheel, so I got a steel milk crate to stand on while I steered the boat,” she said.
That afternoon behind the wheel solidified what Manthey wanted to do when she grew up, and the following school year when she wrote an essay about her career dreams, she said she “wanted to be a 35-barge towboat pilot and a ship pilot.” Her teacher didn’t believe her, since jobs like that were not considered traditional roles for women at the time. Manthey took that as motivation to prove that notion wrong.
And she did.
As soon as she earned her first-class pilot’s license, Manthey applied to be a river pilot, and in the 1990s began taking on more opportunities to get into the industry, as she told The Waterways Journal, “first shifting towboats from the Baton Rouge harbor and then working line haul for Scott Chotin, moving vessels from Baton Rouge to Freeport, Texas.”
In those days, Manthey was the only woman on the radio, she said.
Her path to where she is three decades later did not come without challenges. During pilot association elections in 1984 and 1998, Manthey ran each time but was not even put on the ballot. Despite this, she continued to build a reputation in the industry for her presence and diligence as well as the impact she had on those she met along the way.
In her interview with The Waterways Journal, Manthey detailed an encounter on a dock that was similar to what she had experienced as a child. The moment sparked a religious call, one she already had deep inside as a devout Catholic. She entered the Sisters of St. Joseph convent in 1998, took four units of clinical pastoral education and was certified to become a chaplain.
Around that time, Manthey realized she could merge her faith with her love for the river. She returned to piloting riverboats and towboats and serving mariners through chaplaincy when she was on the river. Manthey started what would become the Seaman’s Church Institute’s (SCI) Ministry on the River in 2000. SCI now has a network of river and Gulf region chaplains based in Houston, the Lower Mississippi River in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La., and in Paducah, Ky.
Manthey will receive the award during the annual Waterways Symposium, hosted by Waterways Council Inc., held November 13–15 in San Antonio, Texas.
