Holy-heckin'-cow it was a great time! The Hazzard County Car Club held its first "Roads Back to Hazzard" tour of original filming sites of "The Dukes of Hazzard" today in the Covington-Conyers-Oxford areas of Georgia. People showed up, people toured around the countryside and got to see how these familiar "Hazzard" sites look today, people had fun! After opening the day at the Holiday Inn in Conyers (where the cast and crew of the show originally stayed during filming in late 1978), the touring commenced, then we all met back at the hotel in the afternoon for the results of the silent auction. There was great merchandise like autographed cast photos, posters, "01" ballcaps and NASCAR parts! The East Coast General Lees club had a nice display of "Dukes" and confederate flag goodies ("heritage not hate" -- which is the way we like it!). BRB (that's me) signed copies of the new print edition of "Them Dukes! Them Dukes!," which really had its official debut at this event. I then relocated to the A Touch of Country shop in downtown Covington, keeper of the "Dukes" shrine museum, and was joined by "Hazzard" maven Jo McLaney and store owners and museum keepers Dianne and Harold Duren. Later on, over at the Conyers VFW hall, we watched some cool home videos (courtesy of John Schneider's mom) of the "Dukes" filming, outtakes and a couple original episodes, taped in 1979 with commercials. Folks gabbed, reminisced and had fun sharing the love of a great show.
A rousing thanks goes out to Jon Holland, his girlfriend (and "Hazzard" quick-study!) Amber, Grant Moroney, webmaster Jeremy and the rest of the crew of the Hazzard County Car Club. You might not know just how much goes into an event like this. These guys have been planning this special tour-down-memory-lane for two years! The proceeds went to the valuable Rainbow Ministries in Covington, reportedly "as close to a Hazzard County orphanage as you can get." The Hazzard County Car Club was able to deliver $1,100 to these good folks at the end of the evening.
Congratulations to Ed of North Carolina (yes, they drove from all over), who won the special raffle prize of the day, a beautifully hand-painted (not decals -- just ask Jon!) General Lee door signed by the mechanics who actually worked on the General Lees for the show. And thanks, also, to Jeff and Liz of East Coast General Lees who brought their own blazin' orange beauty to the event.
Look for photos from the event to be posted to the BRBTV News Blog early next week ...
No comments:
Post a Comment