(The following story by Carrie Moore appeared on the Appalachian News-Express website on November 20.)
PIKEVILLE, Ky. — The Santa Train rolled through Pike County early Saturday morning, and hundreds braved frigid temperatures to greet it.
“It’s cold out here!” said Genia Stanley, while standing with her daughters Abigail and Heaven at 7:15 a.m. at the Shelbiana train station. All three were anxiously awaiting the opening of the doors to the caboose.
Genia Stanley had brought two sons as well, but they had managed to work their way to the front of the crowd. The Stanley boys were more excited about the presents they were about to get, whereas the girls seemed more enthused about catching a glimpse of Santa and Patty Loveless.
The train, co-sponsored by CSX Railroad and the Kingsport Area Chamber of Commerce, has been traveling the 110 miles from Pikeville to Kingsport, Tenn. for 65 years now, distributing toys, games and candy at the stops along the way.
Loveless, a Grammy-winning country music artist, was this year’s celebrity guest. She turned Saturday’s train ride into a family affair, by inviting her husband Gordy and sisters Ruth and Dicey to accompany her. Gordy has ridden the train each of the three times Loveless has acted as its celebrity guest, but this year was Ruth and Dicey’s first.
“Riding, seeing the kids’ faces, does a lot for me,” said Loveless in a phone interview to the News-Express last week.
“It gives me the opportunity to kick off the holiday season for myself.”
The daughter of a coal miner and a former Elkhorn Elementary student, Loveless can relate to the children and people of this area. She lived near Elkhorn City until she was about 10, at which time her family moved to Louisville so that her father, who suffered from heart trouble and black lung, could be closer to medical treatment.
Getting into the holiday spirit this year has been especially hard for Loveless, she said, due to the recent death of her close friend Porter Wagner.
“It’s been sort of an emotional time for me. I’ve known him since I was 14 — he was the first one I met in Nashville,” she said.
Riding the train as a celebrity was not Loveless’ first encounter with it. She recalls seeing the train as a child when she was 6 or 7, on the railroad tracks across the river from her yard. She said she saw Santa waiving from the caboose, but never told anyone because she was known to have imaginary friends and thought her much-older brothers and sisters would chastise her.
Only when her brother, a salesman for CSX railroad, approached her about riding the train as a celebrity for the first time, did Loveless realize what she had seen all those years ago.
Loveless described her early years living in Pike County as “enjoyable,” and said she is proud of where she comes from.
“Sure we had hardships, but [the hardships] helped me to appreciate my struggle to be successful.”