TheTimesTribune.com, Corbin, KY

Features

Related Photos

  • Pictured are the new commissioners at the London-Laurel County Tourism. Rodney Hendrickson and Kim Collier replace Ken Harvey, who retired at the end of January. Photo by Carl Keith Greene

    0215 Kim Collier-Rodney Hendrickson.jpg

Discussion

February 15, 2012

New captains for London-Laurel Tourism Commission

The Times-Tribune

CORBIN — By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

When Ken Harvey became executive director of the London-Laurel County Tourist Commission, he had expected to be there a year.

But he stayed more than a quarter of a century, working up the tourism events, including the birth of the World Chicken Festival 22 years ago.

He retired the first of February and is currently on a cruise in the Pacific Ocean.

His assistant since 1998, Peggy Scott, also decided to retire.

Now there are two new co-executive directors at the tourism center just west of I-75 off KY 80.

Kim Collier came to London from the Harlan Tourist and Convention Commission.

She had also worked in tourism at Cumberland in Harlan County.

“I’m looking forward to working  with Rodney Hendrickson,” she noted, who is the other co-executive.

Hendrickson, was born in Evarts in Harlan County. He moved to London in 1996 working for the United States Department of Agriculture and retired at the end of December last year.

He said, “I stayed retired three weeks.” Then he joined Collier at the Tourism Center.

Agriculture has very little comparison with tourism, he said and explained how he got into tourism. “I was a volunteer.”

“It was through the Red Bud Ride, which is a bicycle ride. My wife and I are cyclists. We attended the first Red Bud Ride just as participants and there were only 26 participants. I thought, ‘I know we can promote this thing in the market and get more riders.’”

So he began working. “Last year we had 669 riders from 22 states. That’s how I got involved, tourism by accident through volunteer work.”

He recalled that last year “the day started out perfect. By 11 o’clock the temperature had dropped to about 20 degrees, we had rain and sleet, flooded roads. But the most amazing thing was none of the cyclists complained. They looked at it as a rite of passage.”

“Cyclists are either the toughest people in the world, or not very smart,” he added.

Looking ahead in his new post he said, “I would like to have more events similar to the Red Bud Ride, maybe in canoeing, kayaking, just a lot of events that will bring outdoor people into Laurel County. I’m especially excited about adventure tourism, or what we called eco-tourism.”

Laurel County, he said, “has untapped potential. We have the Daniel Boone National Forest with all those trails. We have the Rockcastle River. I think that we could be an outdoor tourism or outdoor recreation Mecca.”

Now, looking at the Chicken Festival, Collier is in charge of the festival.

“The first thing that I want to do is meet with the board of trustees and discuss this year’s festival and figure out what the plans are and talk about a couple of new ideas.”

Speaking of the festivals she said, “I think it’s a tremendous festival. Its growth over the past years has been tremendous. A couple of comments I’ve gotten meeting with folks locally are that the last couple of years the festival has remained the same. They are looking at wanting to start something new and exciting to add to the festival. We’ll see what we can do to make that happen.”

She said developing more tourism products are good for Laurel County.

She said she’s a big fan of adventure tourism. “By that I don’t mean motorized ATVs.” She said she likes non-motorized tourism. She explained, “Horse trails, hiking, paddle sports, mountain biking, all the outdoor activities that people love to do.”

“This county has tremendous potential to really develop those kind of trails and activities and really grow,” she concluded.

Text Only
Features