What began as an idea of two celebrities culminated in an event filled day that raised thousands of dollars for one local charity.

Thousands gathered on the Abner farm in Crocketsville on Sunday to ride dirt bikes and ATVs and listen to some music as a way to raise money for the Buckhorn Children’s Center, which cares for abused and neglected children from birth to 18-years-old by offering a variety of services from treatment foster care and adoption to residential living to transitional services and other programs throughout Kentucky and Ohio.

Trucks hauling ATVs and dirt bikes and pulling trailers loaded with the all terrain vehicles began pulling onto the fairgrounds early Sunday morning before the fog raised. As the morning went on and the sun slowly burned off the dense fog, hundreds of ATVs of all kinds could be seen scattered across the grounds.

ATVers had gathered to take part in the First Annual Halfway to Hazard Charity Trail Ride, for the grand opening of the Buckhorn trail head, and to attempt to break the Guinness Book of World Records’ record for longest ATV parade, which is currently held by Harlan County with over 1,100 ATVs, while also raising money for charity.

After the registration was complete, riders lined up and began the approximately five mile trek back to Perry County with police escort and Halfway to Hazard stars and eastern Kentucky natives David Tolliver and Chad Warrix along with their friend and motocross star Ricky Carmichael as the grand marshals. The parade went from Crocketsville, which is on Hwy 315 in Breathitt County, back to Buckhorn and made a loop around the Buckhorn Children’s Center and then back to the trailhead near the Breathitt/Perry County lines and was greeted with waves and shouts from onlookers, who gathered on front porches and by the road side, along the way.

Once they reached the trail head, riders got to see what adventure tourism is all about as they dealt with the dusty conditions due to the lack of rain and journeyed for hours through the approximately 27 mile trail that is part of the East Kentucky Regional Trail.

After returning to the fair grounds in Crocketsville a ribbon cutting was held to officially mark the grand opening of the Buckhorn Trail Head, which along with the East Kentucky Regional Trail, is part of the adventure tourism initiative.

As all those involved with the trail gathered on the stage, in front of hundreds, to cut the ribbon it was also announced that the trail now includes six counties as Knott County had joined Perry, Breathitt, Leslie, Owsley, and Clay Counties in taking part with the trail system.

Bill Berger, with Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo’s office, commended the counties for their efforts by saying, “This trail that you are dedicating exemplifies exactly what it is that we envision across the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky.”

After the ribbon cutting, Knott County Judge-Executive Randy Thompson said he couldn’t be more excited about being part of the trail.

“The other day I got a call from David Tolliver of Halfway to Hazard, of course being from Knott County, and he wanted us involved and it excited me and we got a call from the Perry County Tourism people asking us to get involved so Judge [Denny Ray] Noble and I got to talking about how we could get these trails to interconnect with trails we are already traveling in Knott County, Perry County, and Breathitt County. In instances like these we need to take down the county lines and everybody work together and that is what we are doing here. I am excited for Knott County to be a part of it,” Thompson said.

Perry County Judge-Executive Denny Ray Noble said that making the trail regional will help eastern Kentucky by bringing more to the area.

“Making it regional is going to bring more to eastern Kentucky. We got Clay, Perry, Leslie, Owsley, Breathitt, and Knott Counties working together to make eastern Kentucky a better place to live and working together you get more. Working together you can make progress,” Noble said.

Culley Abner, whose family allowed their farm to be used for the event and along with the Gay family donated land for the trail, said that the way their farm was chosen to host the event, was “luck.”  The Abners recently opened a new convenience store/restaurant in Buckhorn and he said that Chad Warrix’s uncle made a delivery to their store and they began talking about the trails and how Warrix and Tolliver wanted to have an event where their friends could come and ride and Abner said that for him it was a no brainer.

“When we looked around we thought we had a perfect place until we started getting ready and we realized we had a lot of work to do and a short time to do it in and we started putting in over time. On the morning of the event we were still scattering straw and planting flower beds,” he said, but in the end it was a “perfect day.”

Warrix, a Breathitt County native, added, “So many people have come together to make this an unbelievable event that we hope to make an annual event for us. Every year we are going to make it bigger and better and raise more and more money for charity and just have a great time mixing ATVs, dirt bikes, and music.”

Both Warrix and Tolliver said they wanted to give back to the community and the event was a good way to do it.

“We wanted to give something back to the community that we are from. We loved riding four wheelers, ATVs and dirt bikes when we were kids and thought what a better way to represent our area and to bring new people in,” Warrix said. “We have a perfect event site now. These fairgrounds are the nicest we have seen all across the country and we have played just about everywhere. We are really impressed.”

After the ride and the trail dedication, the crowd was treated to performances by Whiskey Falls, Gabe Garcia, Randy Houser, and Danielle Peck while autographed Halfway to Hazard items as well as items that were signed by other celebrities ranging from Faith Hill and Tim McGraw to Julia Roberts were raffled off as a way to raise money for the children’s center.

The evening ended with a performance by Halfway to Hazard who played to hundreds, if not thousands, of screaming fans just as they did the night before at the Black Gold Festival.

Tolliver said, “It was great to come back and to feel the love of the people back here is unbelievable, and I can’t wait to come back next year if they will have us.”

Halfway to Hazard is currently working on their second album and expect to release a single from it at the beginning of the year with the album following shortly thereafter. They say that it will offer something for everyone.

Even though the ATV parade didn’t break the world record, event organizers say it was a success as nearly 900 units took part in the ride.

“We are very pleased with everything. I think we had a lot of fun, raised a lot of money for a good cause, got to introduce our area to a lot of people who hadn’t seen it before, and I think after they see our beautiful mountains and our great trails that they will be coming back,” Tawny Acker-Hogg with Perry County Tourism said. “We didn’t break the record but had close to 900 total units. We only had about 421 that we could count based on the Guinness Book of World Records’ rules, but we had tons of dirt bikes and other vehicles that people could ride on the trails and we are pleased with it. We will get them next year.”

People came from several different states and Canada to take part in the event.