Hillbilly Days

Hillbilly Heaven: Kinney's life benefited Pike, crippled children

Goodbye, Grady: Hillbilly Days co-founder, 75, dies

Stratton details the founding of festival

Remembering Grady - Monument unveiled for festival co-founder

Appalachian News-Express
March 3, 2001

The Shriners have a motto that says, “No man has ever stood so tall as when he stooped to help a child.”

If that’s true, “Shady” Grady Kinney was a giant.

Sadly, the co-founder of Hillbilly Days, the local festival that continues to garner widespread acclaim, died Wednesday at age 75.

With his passing, Pike County lost its No. 1 hillbilly, and crippled children everywhere lost one of their staunchest advocates.

Kinney and Hillbilly Days co-founder Howard “Dirty Ear” Stratton made a firm commitment to helping those children in 1977 when they formed the festival, agreeing to send a percentage of proceeds raised through various events to the Shriners’ Crippled Children’s Fund.

In the festival’s first year, roughly $10,000 was raised for that purpose, marking a trend that grew by leaps and bounds year after year, now reaching a total of about $35,000 annually.

That mission, Kinney would say with a warm smile, made him more proud than any other aspect of the event.

Another focal point of the celebration still is its annual parade, of which Kinney and Stratton were to have been grand marshals next month in honor of the 25th anniversary of the event many - even legendary Pikeville Mayor Dr. William C. Hambley - said wouldn’t make it past the first year.

While some detractors still bristle at the backwoods, redneck image they say Hillbilly Days perpetuates, they can’t argue with its success. The festival has grown into one of the state’s largest, attracting an estimated 100,000 people each year for the three-day event.

That’s not too bad of a legacy for two old hillbillies.

Though Kinney was honored through the years, none of that seemed to matter much to him. On the festival’s 20th anniversary, he and Stratton received letters of thanks from Gov. Paul Patton and then-President Clinton. But Kinney’s son says he even tried - with a laugh, as usual - to give the letter from Clinton to him.

To Kinney, those accolades must have seemed unimportant. It was always the children that mattered most.

Even in death, Kinney’s spirit of giving is benefiting children. Before his death, he asked that all money that would have been spent on flowers instead be sent to the Shriners’ Crippled Children’s Hospital in Lexington.
How fitting.

Among all the kind words that have been said about Kinney since his death, perhaps Wayne T. Rutherford, who was Pike County’s judge-executive when Hillbilly Days was created, said it best: “Will there be Hillbilly Days in Heaven? Howard Stratton and I think so. There will be a celebration because there will be no crippled children in Heaven ... (and) ‘Shady’ Grady Kinney will be the grand marshal of that parade.”

We couldn’t agree more. Goodbye, old friend.

MICHAEL CORNETT
Appalachian News-Express
March 3, 2001

Sitting on a bench in the Pikeville City Park during the inaugural morning of last year’s Hillbilly Days festival, an ailing “Shady” Grady Kinney confided in festival co-founder and longtime cohort Howard “Dirty Ear” Stratton he secretly felt that year’s event would be his last.

Without a blink, Stratton reassured his old friend - dressed as always in his traditional hillbilly overalls and button-covered floppy felt hat - he would be able to attend the rest of that festival and many more to boot.

“He looked at me and said, ‘This is going to be my last one,’” a pensive Stratton said later that day as he stood on the corner of Main Street facing the park, the exact spot the pair each year for 24 years greeted visiting Shriner Hillbillies as they began pouring into town.

“But I told him, ‘No it won’t,’” Stratton said then of his partner’s admission, which he said was amplified by a recent stroke Kinney had suffered along with ongoing complications from kidney failure, weekly dialysis and quadruple-bypass heart surgery in 1996.

“Grady’s a fighter. He’s full of grit,” Stratton said with a smile.

Despite those reassuring words, Kinney’s physical problems precipitated him suffering a massive stroke last week which left him with severe brain damage and ultimately led to his death Wednesday at Pikeville Methodist Hospital. He was 75.

In a sorrowful postscript, Kinney’s death comes just seven weeks before the 25th anniversary of the local parade-turned-national-phenomenon he and Stratton, now 60, humbly nurtured to life in the days prior to the catastrophic 1977 flood.

While Kinney’s words to him last April now seem an unfortunate self-fulfilling prophecy, Stratton said he still was shaken to the core by his longtime companion’s death.

“It’s hurting me real bad that he’s gone,” an emotional Stratton told the News-Express in a telephone interview from his Lexington home just hours after Kinney’s death Wednesday.

“We were good for each other, and we were always together ... everywhere we ever went,” he continued. “It just won’t be the same.”

Despite the shadow Kinney’s death is bound to cast on the festivities, Stratton said they will go on April 19-21 as planned, marking the 25th consecutive year Hillbilly Shriners and thousands of others will crowd into Pikeville for the festival.

That festival, which saw a crowd of roughly 10,000 in its first year, has since soared to historic heights in recent years with crowds right at 100,000 strong - more than 15 times Pikeville’s population - flooding into town for the three-day event.

And 25 years after the first custom hillbilly jalopy rolled, smoked, banged and wheezed through the streets of Pikeville, plans surrounding Kinney were to be extra special this year, Stratton said, capped by the two Hillbilly Days founders riding at the front of the annual parade as its grand marshals.

It was a designation, Stratton said, Kinney was “tickled with.”

“Other than his wife and his son, his life was Hillbilly Days, and he lived it seven days a week, 365 days a year,” Stratton said, noting since Kinney’s passing, he is insisting the car the two would have rode through the city in still do so, but without him.

“I’m not going to do it, but I think the car should be put up front and (be empty) in honor of ‘Shady’ Grady Kinney,” he said. “I’m sure between now and Hillbilly Days, we will be doing something extra for him in honor of all his work and dedication.”

A great majority of that work and dedication, Stratton said, centered around the festival’s mission to raise money for the Shriners’ Crippled Children’s Hospital in Lexington.

In his final interview with the News-Express conducted in April last year, Kinney reflected on that mission.

“That has always satisfied me more than anything because it’s going to a good cause,” Kinney said of the money donated to the hospital, adding the amount now averages about $35,000 each year between the Shriners and a 10 percent cut from all vendors that sell their goods in town during the event.

‘There’s no need to lie about it, I’m proud if it,” the local legend said. “I hope there’s a lot of other people proud of it, too.”

In keeping with that dedication, Kinney even stipulated any money mourners at his funeral would spend on flowers instead be sent as donations to the hospital.

That love for the children who would benefit from the annual festival’s proceeds also left a deep impression on many, including former Pike Judge-Executive Wayne T. Rutherford.

Rutherford, a Shelbiana native like Kinney, in 1977 officially proclaimed the inaugural Hillbilly Days for the pair, also helping them bring the festival to life.

“Our lives are simply a reflection of our actions - due to his actions, many crippled children walked again,” Rutherford said one day after Kinney’s death. “God has a place in Heaven for one of Pike County’s favorite hillbillies.

“Will there be Hillbilly Days in Heaven? Howard Stratton and I think so,” the former county judge continued.

“There will be a celebration because there will be no crippled children in Heaven ... (and) ‘Shady’ Grady Kinney will be the grand marshal of that parade.”

Despite those lofty praises, Jimmy Kinney, the only child of Grady and his late wife, Glema, said his father handled most things, even Hillbilly Days, humbly with an ample dose of humor.

“Nothing excited him, he just went with the flow,” Jimmy Kinney said. “But within five minutes of him being in a room, everybody would know he was there, and they’d all be smiling.”

Stratton agreed, adding Kinney often would be smiling along with them.

“He wanted everybody around him to feel good, and when you were around Grady, you always did,” he said. “That’s a rare quality to have.”

That friendly air, Stratton said, will leave perhaps the biggest void as Shriners and others gather to observe this year’s Hillbilly Days, which will likely also serve as a tribute to Kinney’s work and spirit.

But as he greets incoming Shriners as they pour into town in their trademark jalopy vehicles on the corner of Main Street facing the city park, he’ll truly be doing so alone for the first time.

And all the fond memories he has of his fallen friend won’t make that hurt any less.

“We always had a good time, and I think he would want it to continue, and for everybody to have a good time at Hillbilly Days,” Stratton said, his voice cracking with emotion. “But I’ll sure miss him.”

HOWARD STRATTON
GUEST COLUMNIST
Appalachian News-Express
April 19, 2001

I was called at work recently by News-Express News Editor Michael Cornett, who said the paper wanted me to write down in my own words my feelings about Hillbilly Days for the past 25 years. Well, I wish now I had tried to learn something when I was in school - then maybe I could have put complete sentences together.

Hillbilly Days this year will be a little sad and lonesome without “Shady” Grady Kinney. We were the closest of friends from the first time we met. How I wish I could have him here at the 25th annual Hillbilly Days, which was a dream come true for us.

We got the idea for it in 1976 going to River Day Festival in Portsmouth Ohio. We were invited in Clan 1, Outhouse 1 in Paintsville by Everett Bradley and Norman Miller at Jenny Wiley Lodge in 1974 and we fell in love with the Hillbilly Degree and Clan. We had Mr. Bradley and Mr. Miller come to Pikeville and we would rent a gym and they would put on the Hillbilly Degree work and have a dance. We would talk it up and we would fill the gym. Everybody loved it.

After about a year Grady and I wanted to start our own clan. So I wrote Jim Harris, Imperial Clan raban, and talked to Tom Leake, raban of Clan 1 in Ashland, and told him Grady and I wanted to charter an Outhouse Clan in Pikeville. Tom and Jim agreed to let us have a charter and start a clan in Pikeville, so we knew we were going to get our own clan as early as 1977.

For about as long as I can remember Grady and I wanted a festival for Pikeville. We loved Apple Festival and went almost every year. We watched how it was planned and put on. I would get the brochure and study it. So as we traveled to River Day Festival in 1976 we talked; we knew only a handful of Hillbilly Clans in 1976 and here is what else we knew - we knew they had never all gotten together in one place since Mr. Harris wrote Hillbilly Degree and started Clan 1, in Ashland, El Hasa Shrine Temple.

So we got the idea to see if we could get them together in Pikeville for the first time. In the winter of 1976 Mr. Bradley of Clan 1, Outhouse 1 in Paintsville was having Degree work and a dance at Jenny Wiley; Tom Ross, Imperial Clan officer, had a hillbilly band and played at most of the dances. I went and got Tom Ross over to the side at intermission and told him Grady and I wanted to get all the clans together for the first time, sort of like a convention. Tom said he was all for it. I asked Tom to talk to Jim Harris about it, and if he agreed he would notify the clans to come by letter.

Tom did it and called me back and said a letter would go out to the clans to gather in Pikeville for the first Hillbilly Day, slated for April 1, 1977. Grady and I started work soon as Mr. Harris said he would call the clans in. In our mind things were going just the way we had planned it. We contacted Mayor William C. “Doc” Hambley about the use of the town for the first festival. He agreed; he said, “It won’t last, but try it.”

We then went to my good friend Wayne T. Rutherford, who was county judge-executive. Grady and I talked to Judge Rutherford about the event that would be called Hillbilly Day and asked for his help. We asked him to proclaim it for us. We set a time to do it and we met in his office. On the first meeting we explained not only is this for the Clan 1, Outhouse 2 and visiting clans, we want to make it into a festival each year. Wayne was all for this.

Grady and I went to and wrote our local schools and we got two bands to be in the parade in 1977. We got Gary Fields of Raccoon Creek to make us two-minute radio tapes about Hillbilly Day. Boy were they a hit. I wrote all three TV stations in 1977, but the only response we could get was from the West Virginia station WOWK-TV. We went and taped a 30-minute talk show. This was the first time we had ever been on TV. Thirty minutes seemed like two hours. We were awful.

They advertised it for more than a week. My wife Betty and my four girls and I were anxiously waiting the big moment for the starting of the show. Finally it came on, and we both sounded like we had a mouthful of corn. We were twisting and squirming, stuttering and stammering, looking off, looking up and had awful looks on our faces when we didn’t know answers. My girls laughed until they couldn’t.

Finally, that phase of starting Hillbilly Day was done. Then Judge Rutherford contacted Marlow Tackett and asked if he would put some things together for the parade. Marlow had 25 units - he had a shotgun wedding float, antique cars, horses and wagons, horses with riders, and Gary Fields made a wooden airplane that was so wide it would barely get through the streets.

We met in Judge Rutherford’s office to have him proclaim Hillbilly Day. We sat on his desk and George Wells, Fayette May, Sheriff William “Bill” Deskins and Billy Lykins, captain of the Kentucky State Police, looked on - we were all members of the Pike County Shriner Club. Everyone in that first proclamation picture was Shriners of El Hasa Temple. So it was proclaimed, and the Pike County News, now the News-Express, ran it.

Tom Leake, raban of Clan 1, said he would have every hillbilly car and truck from Clan 1 there. There were about 15 units of them. We got Greg Anderson to line up the first Hillbilly Day parade, and he continued doing it for at least 10 or more years. So the first Hillbilly Day had come. Marlow Tackett had his band playing in town and the park, as did little Joe Atkins, who was the official band of Clan 1, Outhouse 2. Nolan Hall of WLSI was in the park to emcee the music of Marlow and Joe Atkins. He loved it and helped for many years. I think Dork Coleman of Shelbiana was in the parade with his mules and wagon. I know my good friend Charles Hall of Ratliffs Creek was in the first parade with his mule and sled, and was for years after that. Old man Jim Ferrell, a good friend to Grady and me, had his red mules and wagon in the parade the first year. He drove them from Lower Johns Creek to Pikeville. Larry Blake Pinson had a couple horses and carriage.

They estimated 5,000 people at the first Hillbilly Day. We had five concession stands. We had a few old-timers playing music that day. The weather was fair that day, but a little on the cold side. We had the support of all local Shrines and our Shrine Temple of Ashland. We had the support of Pike Fiscal Court and Mayor Hambley and the Pikeville City Commission. We had the support of our local people. When the majority of the local people support it, it will never die.

I think about $3,000 to $5,000 was made by the Hillbilly Clan. Hillbilly Days is set up so that funds would go to Clan 1, Outhouse 2 and they will take it once a year to the Lexington Shriners’ Hospital and Cincinnati Burn Center for Children. This is an event and festival with a purpose. When you have a good cause and Shriners involved in any event - especially our Hillbilly Day - it has to succeed, even though a lot of people thought it would end after one.

We started right off planning for the second festival and made it two days, so we called it Hillbilly Days. The second festival was large - about 10,000 people attended, and we all got better planning it. On the third one our local merchants and Pike County Chamber of Commerce got involved, with Frank Morris as director. We all had hardly any money to work on, but thanks to local radio stations and newspapers, the word got out. I wrote articles and put them in Camel Talk El Hasa monthly news magazine. We created the Hillbilly News, which goes to all 150-plus clans in the United States and Canada. I have been writing about Hillbilly Days and Clan 1, Outhouse 2 since Hillbilly News was started, I think in 1983. This helped get the word out.

Hillbillies would come to Pikeville, then go home and start their own clan. It just kept going.Bob Craig started the first International Hillbilly Convention in Cincinnati in 1982, with the help of Jim Harris and all Imperial Clan officers. He asked Grady and me to bring my official Hillbilly staff car and haul Jim Harris in the parade. For the second International Hillbilly Convention, he asked us to bring my car and come back and lead the parade.

Later, the International Hillbilly Convention was born from Hillbilly Days. Bob Craig came to Hillbilly Days, talked to Grady and me about his idea for a convention and we were all for it and supported it. It was a huge success. I wrote articles in support of it ... and it contributed to growth of Clans nationwide.

“Thank you’s”

On behalf of Shady Grady Kinney and Dirty Ear I would like to thank every person, business and organization that has supported Hillbilly Days for what soon will be 25 years. It has put Pikeville on the map. It is known in every state in the country.

The festival, through Clan 1, Outhouse 2, has made hundreds of crippled and burned children well. This is the purpose of Hillbilly Days - helping a less fortunate child. I must say how proud Grady and I are of the officers and members of Clan 1, Outhouse 2 for their hard work. This year and every year in the past.

We are especially proud of George C. Wells, past potentate of El Hasa Temple and Board Member Emeritus of the Lexington Shriners’ Hospital. George was instrumental in getting the Merchants Association involved in Hillbilly Days in about its fourth year. George is a close friend to all and respected for his great work with the Shrine and Hillbilly Days.

Thanks to our visiting Clans that come every year - they voluntarily come here to be in Hillbilly Days, they have a good time and are made welcome each and every year. They love Pikeville and the local people. Just a few as examples, C.A. Gatlin, Charleston, S.C.; Wayne Rudolph, upstate New York; George Irin, Cocoa, Fla.; and Larry Richardson, South Carolina. They are all as well known as any of our local people.

Larry Webster is over the music in the park for Hillbilly Days. He started in either the second or third annual one. Larry keeps the old-time music alive. He has local groups and groups from far off come in every year. Larry spends about $6,000 of his own money every year to put them on and it is one of the reasons Hillbilly Days is successful.

Larry writes articles about Hillbilly Days, he has wrote a few about Grady and me. We loved them. Wally Ferch, who was Raban of Clan 50 in Wisconsin for many years and over the Imperial Clan Ambassadors program of the Clans for many years, has also wrote many articles for Hillbilly Days. Like me he is getting up in years and for health reasons has to slow down. He will be unable to attend this year.

Alice Kinder also wrote many articles for Grady and me about Hillbilly Days. Her husband Hobert Kinder was my school teacher. He was a great teacher, but I just didn’t have school on my mind much then. How I am paying for it now. If I could do it over, to all my teachers, I really would have tried. She loved Hillbilly Days and would come and talk to us with a smile on her face. How we miss her. She is what it will be like in Heaven.

She was Gerri Kinder’s mother-in-law. Gerri is past director of Pike County Chamber of Commerce but before that, she and Herman Dotson would help line up the Hillbilly Days parade for the first four or five years. She always supported Hillbilly Days and was totally dedicated to it.

Thank you to the city police department who keep it a safe event. Thank you to the sanitation workers who keep trash picked up hourly and keep the streets clean. Thank you to the tourism commission for the wonderful brochures and promotion of Hillbilly Days. Thank you to the fire department of Pikeville who work hard through this event and the rescue squad who take care of emergencies.

Thank you to Paul Patton. Paul, when he was county judge, he started the political stump meetings. Thank you to past Judge-Executive Donna Damron, and fiscal court members who did everything they could for Hillbilly Days. Thank you to Karen Gibson and magistrates who are doing everything they can for Hillbilly Days. Thank you Mayor Frank Morris and city commissioners for your support.

On behalf of Grady Kinney and his son, Jimmy, I want to thank Clan 1, Outhouse 2 for the marker that will be set in city park in honor of my friend Grady, a great man I will miss from now on. It will be dedicated to him as part of welcoming ceremony tomorrow at 5 p.m. Former Judge Wayne T. Rutherford will do the dedication, and Mrs. Josephine Edmonds will be there, too.

Josephine works with the historical society and promotes Hillbilly Days. Josephine, thank you for all your work in the past and your effort to see Hillbilly Days is never forgotten for the marker you had put in the park in 1985.

Thank you to Bill McCray, Bobby May, James Newsome and Bill Reynolds, who judge the Hillbilly part of the parade every year.

This is the 25th anniversary and Coke made special bottles about it. We thank them for doing it and having $10,000 for the Clan as part of its proceeds. The story was picked up on The Associated Press wire service and I have had calls from Alabama, New York, Tennessee, Florida and Ohio saying their local paper had articles about the souvenir bottles.

Grady also wanted me to thank everybody this year. He wanted Dickie Brown, now a member of our Clan, thanked for the thousands of dollars he made giving Levi Garrett chewing tobacco away. People would give him donations and he would give a check to the Clan to give to the hospitals annually.

And Grady, we will never forget you. Everyone has been thanked like you wanted and the 25th anniversary is in honor of you. Jimmy, we will never forget him. God bless everyone and Hillbilly Days for crippled children.

I will close with saying welcome to the 25th anniversary of Hillbilly Days, and Grady, old friend, I know you will be in Heaven looking down on us. It will not be the same without you.

MELISSA CORNETT
Appalacian News-Express
April 21, 2001

A bluegrass player picked out a mountain tune as bib-overall-clad children and adults sitting on lawn chairs laughed and chatted, catching up on happenings during the past year.

The scent of Polish sausages frying on an open grill mixed with the sweet smell of powdered-sugar-covered funnel cakes drifted into the Pikeville City Park from a nearby booth.

And then there were the tears.

Some people traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles, others came from Pike or nearby counties, but all came yesterday evening to officially say goodbye to “Shady” Grady Kinney and honor the late Hillbilly Days co-founder’s accomplishments.

As the bright sunlight shone down on a stone marker reading “You can’t put a price on what we do for children, so do it for free,” and dedicated to the memory of Kinney, Kinney’s longtime cohort and festival co-founder, Howard Stratton, his bottom lip quivering, did his best to blink away the tears welling in his eyes.

“It was a wonderful tribute, it brought tears to my eyes - I tried my best not to cry, but I couldn’t help it,” Stratton said of the ceremony where a stone marker, placed in the park in Kinney’s memory, was unveiled just prior to the kick-off of the festival’s 25th year.

“I was so touched by the people in our Hillbilly club who stood up and thought of doing this monument for Grady. Our Shriner club and our community showed a lot of love today for Grady.”

Kinney’s efforts to help crippled children made him deserving of every ounce of that love, former Pike County Judge-Executive Wayne T. Rutherford, who signed the first Hillbilly Days proclamation 25 years ago, said.

“This unique monument pays tribute to Grady Kinney, a mountain hero. A man with a caring heart who could feel the pain of a precious child. A man who gave his time and energy to help God’s children, a true Mason, a great person - a hero,” Rutherford said during yesterday’s dedication.

For younger Shriners such as Sam Cecil of the local Hillbilly Clan 1, Outhouse 2 and Henry Scott, a Shriner from Sterling Heights, Mich., the efforts of Kinney and Stratton, who started the Hillbilly Days festival as a fund-raiser for the Shriners’ Hospital for Children in Lexington in 1977, are legendary.

“Grady Kinney was a great guy, dedicated to the cause of helping crippled children,” Scott said. “All Shriners know about Hillbilly Days - and Grady and Howard - it has brought in a lot of money and helped a lot of children.”

And if it wasn’t for Kinney and Stratton the festival, which has soared to historic heights in recent years with crowds right at 100,000 strong - more than 15 times Pikeville’s population - would not be in existence, Rutherford said.

“Grady and Howard have built a monument across the ages. Masonry is a life built on the foundation stone of caring, fidelity and charity,” Rutherford said.

“The courage of ordinary folks like Grady and Howard is all that stands between light and dark. Aren’t we lucky there is so much light in Pike County.”

The dedication, Kinney’s son, Jimmy, said was a touching remembrance of his father who died Feb. 28 of a massive stroke at 75.

“It’s been a hard day, an emotional day, but Dad wouldn’t want us to be sad,” Jimmy Kinney said, wiping tears from beneath his mirrored sunglasses, as he stood among the mass of festival-goers gathered in the city park.

A solemn Rutherford agreed.

“It’s different this year even though it is a beautiful day and we have this big crowd, Grady is gone and that takes away from it all,” Rutherford said, “but he would have wanted us to go on and raise more money for the children.”

One of Kinney’s favorite parts of the annual festival, Jimmy Kinney said, was the hillbilly sights and sounds surrounding the event and watching others enjoy themselves.

“He like to see people come out and have a good time and for people to have smile on their faces and laugh,” Jimmy Kinney said. “That’s the way he was.”

As the Hillbilly Train’s horn beckoned riders, and the bluegrass pickers readied their bows, Imperial Raban Jim Harris of the El Hasa Temple in Ashland agreed that nothing would have made Kinney happier than to see Hillbilly Days march on as it has for the past 25 years.

“I’m sure ‘Shady’ Grady is here somewhere,” he said, “smiling.”