Monday, May 20, 2024

Info About The Upcoming 25th Anniversary Celebration of Cooter's Place and My Weekend With Catherine Bach


Another big Dukes of Hazzard event is coming up and this one will be so special.  Ben and Alma have been entertaining us Dukes fans at Cooter's for twenty-five years and it's time to celebrate.  The event will take place over the weekend of July 19-21 and we have great things planned.  Catherine Bach, Tom Wopat, Rick Hurst and Jeff Atlman will headline the event and there will be a few surprise and not yet announced guests to add to the list.  Originally, the plan was to have the event at Cooter's in Luray, but it has now been moved to the Page Valley Fairgrounds, which is about five miles west of Cooter's in Luray.  The stars and cars will be there and I am fortunate enough to have a few activities planned that I hope will be crowd pleasers.  More on those in the future.  The details of the event are still getting ironed out and more announcements will be made soon.  I happened to be in Luray over the weekend where I was in discussion about some of those plans and also got to hang out with two of my favorite women, my wife and Daisy Duke herself, Catherine Bach.  Let's take a look at a few pictures from the weekend.  


Natalie doesn't always accompany me on Dukes trips but she did this time.  She had a blast and has become good friends with Catherine over the years.  The Dukes of Hazzard is all about family!


It was a very good crowd and Richie runs a great autograph line.  I love being able to help fans' dreams come true when they meet their heroes.  And Daisy Duke is a perfect hero.  We all know this.  





The line went through the entire store and was solid all day.  Every fan got their autograph and photo.  There were a lot of happy Dukes fans this weekend.  


Catherine spends time with every fan and makes sure they are having a great time.  We Dukes fans are so blessed.  


Catherine took pictures with fans in front of the General.  


A few items were sent in to Cooter's to get signed.  I opened one package that contained a baseball and a letter.  I read the letter and it happened to be from our pal Paul Letlow.  I featured a portion of Paul's Dukes collection on the blog years ago.  Check it out here.  


I had to snap some pics of Catherine autographing the baseball and text them to Paul right away.  He sure was happy to get that text.
  

Cooter's recently updated the dining area, Cooter's Country Kitchen and there's new staff running the kitchen.  They also did some remodeling.  I had several menu items and they were great.  



I love the tables, and all the decor is great.  You won't go wrong having a bite to eat at the new Cooter's Country Kitchen. 


There's always new items at Cooter's.  This time I bought several new shirts, one featuring the new 25th Anniversary logo seen above, and four new keychains.  These keychains are made with great quality and I couldn't pass them up.  


I had to snap a picture of one of my most favorite items Cooter's has ever created.  Look at all this glorious 01 wrapping paper! I don't quite have that much at DukesCollector headquarters, but I have a bunch.  I really love this stuff!


This was fun to see hanging up on the wall beside the register.  


It's the plaque Richie and I presented to Ben and Alma during the 40th Anniversary of the Dukes of Hazzard celebration in Nashville in 2019.  Great to see displayed in a prominent place. 
 

It was a perfect weekend spent with two lovely ladies.  Natalie had fun and I had a blast.  Catherine enjoyed herself too. We talked plans for the July event and I can't wait to announce my additions to the event.  It's going to be so much fun.  Look for more updates on Cooter's site and socials and keep an eye on the ol' DukesCollector blog for my announcements.  This is going to be fun!