Hillbilly Christmas in July, Inc.

Mary Meadows
Medcial Leader

PIKEVILLE — It’s a proven fact: There ain’t nothin’ a hillbilly won’t do to raise funds for Shriners’ Hospitals for Children.

Want proof?

Shriners from the local Shriner’s clan, Hillbilly Clan 1, Outhouse No. 2, and from other states, have dressed up in outrageous hillbilly garb (pin-pricked hat and bib overalls included) and driven old jalopies, mini bikes, golf carts and chopped off VW bugs through Pikeville each year to attract more and more people who may be willing to donate funds for the hospital.

But the Shriners don’t stop there. Their determination to help the Lexington-based hospital provide free health care to children expands into bigger, better and crazier themes each year.

For the past two years, Shriners sold chances for Hillbilly Days patrons to win a hillbilly goat — aptly named “Shady” after Hillbilly Days founder “Shady” Grady Kinney. They paraded the hillbilly hat-wearing goat through the streets of Pikeville, selling $1 chances for people to win the goat and giving people who didn’t want a goat the option to not win the goat for $1.

In the past, Shriners have also sold chances to win a pig and held other events like the Hillbilly Horseshoe competition — tossing toilet seats as horseshoes to get points. It’s ideas like these that pay off. Over the past 33 years, Hillbilly Days’ fundraisers have provided more than $1 million for Shriners’ patients.

And, from the looks of things, it appears that local Shriners are getting even more creative this year.

During the Eastern Kentucky Home & Garden Show, held last weekend at the Eastern Kentucky Exposition Center in Pikeville, Shriner Jimmy Kinney demonstrated a prop that will be used for an unusual Hillbilly Days fundraiser: an outhouse.

Outhouses are no strangers to the Hillbilly Days festival; they decorate the backs of hillbilly trucks and are pictured on t-shirts and other items. But this year will mark the first Hillbilly Days Outhouse race.

Four-person teams will race while carrying the wooden outhouse (and the fifth team member who sits in the outhouse) down Hambley Boulevard at noon on April 16. Two outhouses (Outhouse 1 and Outhouse 2, both built by Kinney) will be used for several races, and the teams with the best race times will compete for the outhouse race championship.

The Hillbilly Christmas in July group, made up of Shriners and community members, is organizing the event and several others to raise funds that benefit Shriners’
patients. Committee members hope that teams from several high schools, businesses and organizations sign up to participate.

The group is also asking area residents to “take a gamble” to help Shriner’s hospital.

The group’s fundraising season kicks off on March 7 with the first-ever Hillbilly Texas Hold’em Tournament, which will be held at the Mark V in Pikeville.