Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen Alayne McCullough.
Hi Karen Alayne, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My mother, Annette McCullough, raised me in Anderson, SC. We were poor by any standard measured by the world perspective but blessed, rich, and highly favored with country life, fields, streams, lakes, ponds, and fresh veggies handpicked each day from many acres of crops planted by my father, grandfather, and uncles. We would busy ourselves after chores, riding trees, hypnotizing chickens, and rolling each other down embankments in fifty-gallon drums. When not off getting into all kinds of innocent mischief, I was playing drums, bass, or guitar in our local church and enjoyed seeing others getting into the music and its message.
I had an entrepreneurial spirit from a young age and took on many jobs as a child and young adult, from cutting sugar cane, picking cotton, and later becoming a stomper when the automation came in; my sister and I worked at my aunt’s bakery cutting fruit for her famous seasonal fruit cakes, well she told us all they were famous, and we all believed her, I drove a tractor and a manual jeep by the age of nine even placed logs on my dad and uncles sawmill and pulled a stuck school bus who had run off into a ditch out with a chain and our jeep at the age of 13. I cleaned three houses for our neighbors before or after school, all before 15 years of age. I even had a candy business on the school bus at 12. I convinced my mother to loan me my first twenty dollars to start a school bus candy business. Now, that was a lot of money in the seventies, but she believed in me and gave me the seed money. So, we went to the local K-mart and picked out what I thought would double our money; thankfully, every week, it did.
One day, I went with my mother to the local radio station to pick up a gift certificate for some furniture she had won. I was fascinated by the equipment and the callers who would call Matt Phillips and speak much to do about nothing. Mom proudly received the winning ticket for probably the very first brand new furniture she had ever owned, and when the owner of that WRIX radio station turned to me and asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, I said sir, I think I would like to do your job. Can you believe he said well, let’s see how you do at it and sat me down to talk to callers? It came naturally, and within four weeks of volunteering on that radio talk show, Matt Phillips offered me a job. I worked my way up to the drive time spot and enjoyed my show called Alayne’s Gospel Train for my last two years in high school and my first year in college.
I transferred from Anderson College to Free Gospel Bible College in Export, PA, where I could go to Africa and spend nine weeks building children’s homes. I may have been there to this day had I not had such a love for my family and missed them dearly. Shortly after returning to the States, I ended my time in PA and returned to Anderson. I was working on my mother’s well, replacing the foot valve, and needed help because two-inch piping went eighty feet into the healthy housing and had a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound lid covering the bored well. I managed to lift the cover, and gravity helped it down to the ground, but the rest was no match for me and my statue, so I called and enlisted my uncle Wayne to please help me. In our conversations, he told me he was dating a lady from Jasper, TN, and said he had seen an advertisement for a band out of Nashville, TN who wanted a female drummer. I agreed to ride with him to audition for the band five hours away. Can you believe they asked me to join the band on the third song? I never knew it then, but this one move would set the trajectory of my life, establish many crossed paths, and give life training skills to make a young girl’s dream come true.
In my early childhood, my mother and Aunt Dona Shifflette would take my cousins and sisters camping at all the parks in Anderson on Lake HarLakel. We had become very fond of Asbury Park; however, the Army Corp of Engineers closed down many recreational parks in the early eighties. We were very much troubled about the park closing. A group I would hang with from school would get together and discuss what we wanted to do when we grew up; we talked politics, dog ticks, and any other ticks that came to mind or needed solving while we were sitting across from the closed down park on highway 24 which the locals call the double bridges. The little area between the two bridges had about seven parking spaces where young people would congregate and chat. I spoke out during these times of conversing with my high school peers. I knew I wanted to play professional music, but I hoped someone in this group would find it in their heart to reopen some of the parks that were being closed down, especially Asbury Park.
I graduated high school and went on to play professional music with Tommy Cash, Johnny Cash, Stella Parton, Whispering Bill Anderson, Bobby G Rice, and many other artists in both southern gospel and country. I moved close to Nashville to a little town called Dunlap, TN, where I opened Music Makers with a band partner, Jill Taylor. Finding retail and the lesson facility profitable, I opened a recording studio, Music Masters, in Soddy Daisy, TN, and a retail music store and lesson facility, Fireball Music, right outside Chattanooga in Hixson, TN. This is where a little lady that the world now knows as Lauren Alaina walked into my studio and asked if I would be her vocal coach. I coached and groomed her for American Idol and was on the show with her during her homecoming show. I’m extremely proud that she has now been inducted into the Grand Old Opry. In 2000, I had a song called Toll Free Number that went into the top ten independent European country music charts, allowing me to do a 14-country tour.
One of the biggest honors was seeing that song sit under Allison Krause on the charts for over nine weeks. All of these happenings led me to meet many individuals who actively played on the Grand Ole Opry and professionally in the music industry worldwide. One such individual found favor with me and asked me when I wasn’t touring if I would like to become the general manager of a project in Winchester, TN, called Twin Creeks. I agreed and started a secondary career in the Marina – RV Resort recreation world. I committed to overseeing the project during its build phase and soon moved on to several other projects. During my ventures, I would drive over the double bridges to see my mother and family, look at the old park, and say, Lord, why does no one see the potential in that amazing park? One day, while driving over that bridge, I mumbled in my mind’s eye those same words of thought, and it felt like an audible voice said why don’t you try? The park has been in your heart all these years, so why don’t you try to open it? I rolled that around and started giving myself many reasons as to why that would not be possible; however, after many years of driving over the bridge and thinking about it, I received a phone call from a lifelong friend, Wanda Watt Morton, who said Karen I know you have your music career. I know you are managing an RV park in Tennessee, but the old Asbury Park just went up on the World Wide Web for someone to develop. Wanda said she had thought of me and wanted me to be aware. Immediately, I felt a burst of energy and excitement and asked who she thought I should call to get info. Once off the phone with her, I immediately called the County Administrator in Anderson. We scheduled an appointment for the next day. I drove from Winchester, TN, to the meeting. The paperwork and meetings took many months, but here we are, and now the dream of a high school girl is becoming a reality.
The Shores of Asbury is now South Carolina’s largest white sugar sand beach, with over two hundred truckloads brought in from the Gulf of Florida. The Army Corp of Engineers also approved the park’s first website, a floating water park, and an obstacle course on beautiful Lake Hartwell. It offers cabanas and beach loungers for the tropical experience, minus the jellyfish and sharks. The Shores of Asbury is in the completion of its first phase and provides a full-service restaurant with entrees from low country broil, crab legs, oysters, salmon, snapper, steaks, burgers, wings, pizzas, to a full menu of Mexican entrees and adult beverages. There is something for every age group at The Shores, from fishing to swimming, playing in the water park, kayaking, camping, or listening to live entertainment every weekend through the season on the boardwalk music stage. Looking back, I can see every step led me to fulfill the planning, execution, building, and running of The Shores of Asbury RV Resort. Sharing a high school girl’s dream and how it became a reality influences other young women and men to dream big and know they can enjoy a life of fulfilled service to others. I could have retired before fifty, but I genuinely love seeing others enjoy the fruits of our labor. I have trusted others for many years to find The Shores of Asbury RV Resort a place to make lasting memories like my family. Nothing is more satisfying than hearing laughter and smiling faces enjoying their time here on the white sandy beaches of The Shores of Asbury RV Resort.
Would it have been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There have been many obstacles in building The Shores of Asbury RV Resort. The main hurdle was the extensive paperwork for the County / Army Corp of Engineers lease. The County had never done a lease like ours, so navigating the logistics was very big. Then, COVID-19 happened right after we took the project; not only did many of us get sick, but several died, and we struggled with sheer grief as thousands of others throughout the USA and all around the world have. We have dedicated an area of our park to those lost during this horrific historical period. Supply chains were another unaccounted obstacle; for example, you could go to any handwear store and pick up fifty hydrants or RV pedestals for electricity. Not now; it takes months, sometimes a year, to get the same item in huge quantities. Then, every item needed more than double the cost, so the build projections became lost in the flurry of it all. I found a favor with a gentleman from Nashville who stepped in and gave me a loan to help me finish several projects. Then there is finding laborers to help run everything visioned. These obstacles teach patience perseverance, and give way to ambition and passion. One must not let struggles, obstacles, or challenges defeat you. Try to look at them as a life lesson to continue. If you give up, you will never accomplish your true potential. I believe in my dream, which drives me to work over a hundred hours weekly.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My life’s work is a facilitator of creativity and new beginnings. From my first day in kindergarten, my mother said the teacher said I offered to help her teach the class. I know we laugh at that picture, but I believe that the story my mother has told over and over for over fifty years now allowed me to know in my heart my greatest personal achievement would come from helping others, whether it be in helping Lauren find her voice or a mom has a place to bring her children to enjoy the peaceful lifestyle of the lake or children in Africa know they mean enough to strangers that we would fly halfway around the globe to help build them a home. The thing I’m most proud of is I realized at a very early age we were here for a very short time. We should not take that for granted. I’m pleased I realized at a very early age to try to live in a way that makes a difference in the lives around me, and hopefully, when my short life is over, I will have accomplished something far greater than my existence. I want to accomplish something that will live on for generations after generations to enjoy and want to return to again and again with their loved ones. A vision of restoring a place that seemed too good to be true as a child back to a magical place with spectacular sunsets, a truly beautiful place for others to enjoy, is one of the things I’m most proud of. Not being scared to reinvent myself or challenge myself to take on unsurmountable challenges also makes me proud. I can’t, has never been in my vocabulary, nor has the words it can’t be done. I won’t accept that frame of thinking; a positive mental state of perseverance, happiness, enthusiasm, drive, work stamina, and belief that everything is possible sets me apart. Not being scared to try and strive to learn something every day sets me apart from others. I told my students that you can never accomplish anything if you never try to accomplish anything. I also have always told my students that if I could do at seventy what I was doing at thirty, I wasn’t doing enough. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and work; it’s how things get done!
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
I have loved handyman books from early childhood. A third edition of Black’s Law Dictionary sits beside the Walker Building Estimates reference book on my bookshelf. When YouTube came out two years ago, I immersed myself in watching a how-to every evening, from building fire pits, stamping concrete, or building ram pumps. I’ve always found it fascinating to learn to do something. It’s amazing how much knowledge is available for the taking. We can learn anything our heart desires and truly have no excuse not to. I hate when one says I’m bored; if I could have a wish fulfilled, it would be to clone 12 of me so I could keep us all busy. There is so little time to accomplish all that is in my heart and mind and to get it done.
Pricing:
- RV Concrete Super Sites $98.89
- RV Waterview back in $59,98
- RV Pull through sites $68 to $89
- Water Park 1hour online $17.98
- Water Park All Day $34.98
Contact Info:
- Website: www.TheShoresofAsbury.com
- Facebook: The Shores of Asbury
Image Credits
Cheryl Khe, Turnage Karen, Alayne McCullough
