The Buckhorne
Country Store and Campground
"Antique Attraction"
By John Maglinger
Photos by Jeff Bartley
Returning a video to the Buckhorne Country Store and Campground, Inc.?
Just throw it in the stove.
“It’s a conversation piece,” says proprietor Ray Allen, who wanted to do something special with the antique cast iron stove his wife, Cherie, gave him last year as a Christmas present. “I knew I couldn’t sell it, because it was a gift,” Allen said, “and I just couldn’t hook it up in the store and risk burning the place down. I wanted people to notice it, but I wanted to put it to some practical use, too.”
It didn’t take him long to find a solution.
He hired a carpenter who cut a video drop hole in the outside wall and installed a video return slot that opens into a stove pipe. The pipe is attached to the stove inside the Buckhorne Country Store. A patron returning a video simply slips the film down the stove pipe. An egg crate and foam pads inside the stove cushions the drop.
Enhancing its country store flavor with regional folk. lore, the Buckhorne Country Store also features a moonshine still from Franklin County, Virginia, the selfproclaimed moonshine capital of the world. The still, on loan from a friend of owners Ray and Cherie Allen, is placed near a rack of video titles that include, Thunder Road, White Lightning and Moonshine Highway.
Located near Clifton Forge in Alleghany County, Virginia, Buckhorne is a ten-and-a-half acre campground the Allens bought at an auction a year ago. The site features eleven RV electrical and water hookups, nine ‘primitive’ tent camping sites and a much admired bed and breakfast. The Country Store serves up a variety of delicious ice cream flavors and offers more than 2,000 VHS rental titles. “Drama and comedy rent best for us,” Allen said, “but action and adventure movies do well, too.” The country store also offers everything from antiques and live bait to children’s birthday catering and groceries.
Just a short walk from the entrance to Douthat State Park, Buckhorne is one of Virginia’s most rustic and historic tourist attractions.
The Allens also are tied to a little Virginia history.
Cherie, who graduated with a music degree from the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music, is a former Miss Virginia (1968). In placing among the ten finalists in the Miss America Pageant, Cherie, a vocalist, won the Pageant’s talent contest. She has performed on Broadway in Lerner and Lowe’s production of ‘Gigi’ and toured with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera’s productions of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ and ‘The Sound of Music’. Neither is Ray Allen a stranger to honors.
A 1963 graduate of Morehead State University in Kentucky, Allen was president of his senior class. In 1999, he was inducted into the Morehead State University Alumni Association Hall of Fame. He has taught high school English, mythology, drama, creative writing, journalism, health and physical education for thirty-seven years, written three books of poetry, served as student campaign chairman in high school and college for two Kentucky governors, coached high school varsity sports in which his teams won their share of state championships and created the
‘Appalfolks of America Association’, a drama organization whose onetime board member was his good friend and former Poet Laureate of Kentucky, the late Jim Wayne Miller.
Is someone filming all this? If so, keep the cameras rolling. Allen wrote the lyrics to ‘Home Sweet Home, Virginia’ a song honoring Virginia’s abundant heritage and beauty. A friend, Bob Campbell, provided the music. They entered the song in the Virginia State Song Contest. The winning tune will replace ‘Carry Me Back to Old Virginny’, which was retired by the Virginia State Legislature.
In a field of three-hundred-thirty-nine, ‘Home Sweet Home, Virginia’ was among the twenty finalists and while he may be a political veteran, Allen didn’t expect politics to play a role in the selection process.
When the number of songs was trimmed to eight, Allen asked state officials if votes recorded on an internet site (set up for that purpose) had been tabulated before the cut was made. The answer was no. “We ended up protesting and were interviewed on CBS,” Allen said. “It wasn’t sour grapes. My point was, ‘Why even set up the site in the first place if they weren’t going to count the votes?’ The Roanoke Times conducted a poll and we received more than 8,000 votes in winning the poll, compared to only eighteen votes that the selection panel’s top vote-getting song received. The panel has postponed selecting a state song for more than a year now”
If you conducted a poll around the Buckhorne Country Store and Campground you would find all Allen family members are winners. The Allens’ son, Landon Ray, 23, just graduated from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and is a Marine Corps 2nd Lieutenant training to become a pilot. Jana, 19, just completed her sophomore year at Liberty University in Lynchburg where she is majoring in Broadcast Journalism. Amber, 15, is an active high school freshman, and works part time at the store, as does Anmarie, 11, an elementary school marvel and expert ice cream server.
Since their children are evenly spaced four years apart, Allen jokingly said the day Anmarie turned four, Cherie booted him out of the house.
That’s just part of the Allen family lore - that, and other stories, make the rounds at the Buckhorne Country Store where visitors admire a gleaming, silver-trimmed, potbelly stove and listen for the next video to come tunneling down the chute.
