LEXINGTON, Ky. - One of the country’s most notorious family conflicts is the theme for a public walking campaign, as residents of Kentucky and West Virginia compete in the Hatfield-McCoy Healthy Feud.
Some residents of six West Virginia counties and Pike County in Kentucky have pledged to walk 100 miles in 100 days - through Dec. 17. These are not necessarily Hatfield or McCoy descendants.
Technically, all the Kentuckians are walking as McCoys and the West Virginians as Hatfields.The feuding families, who eagerly murdered one another from 1865 to 1891, were generally geographically split by the Tug Fork River, the boundary between the two states, said Adam Flack, executive director of West Virginia on the Move. The agency is one of several community groups in both states promoting the challenge.
The story of the long-simmering and often deadly feud has a real resonance with people in the area, Flack said. “There are a lot of descendants, and they are very proud of it,” he said. A 2012 History Channel miniseries on the feud also inspired a new wave of tourism related to the conflict.
Flack said the concept, to walk 100 miles in 100 days, has been used for several years by West Virginia University Health-Care in Morgantown, his former employer. About 5,000 people have participated in a campaign that takes a new theme each year, he said.
The Mingo County Diabetes Coalition in West Virginia is another group helping to promote walking. Director Jennifer Hudson said her group already had a popular program encouraging people to walk during lunch.
Walking 100 miles in 100 days seems a lofty goal, but it is easily doable, she said, even for people who are just beginning to exercise. Doing something as a community helps get “everybody pushing each other to do something,” she said.
ActiveStyle, Pages 28 on 09/30/2013