I love seeing the passion that some special people pour into organizing cornhole scenes that bring together friends and communities across the country, and give warm welcomes to folks visiting or moving to their area. I recently met one couple Josh and Christy who do all that in spades down in Charleston, South Carolina where they run Charleston Cornhole. I wanted to share their story and some pictures of the amazing facility they’ve built on their property.
Back in 2012, Joshua and I were transferred by the Navy to Charleston, SC from Virginia Beach with our family. A year or so after settling in, Joshua met some locals and started playing cornhole around the area. He noticed quickly that there were some very talented players, but everyone was scattered playing just here and there. Josh came to me one day and asked how I felt about running a cornhole league for the area to bring everyone together. I knew little about the game and had no clue where to start, but after reaching out to the right people and having awesome support from our locals, we began our journey as ACO Certified Officials in 2014.
We invested a lot of time and money to start something that we really did not know how it would go. The turnout was incredible, our first season we had over 80 players, it was one of the best times of our life and meeting amazing people all over the country was the icing on the cake. We continued our journey with the ACO for 4-5 years and decided to step away to see where we really wanted to go with our roles in the Charleston area. In that time, Josh retired from the military, started a new career with a lot of traveling, moved to a new house, and I went back to school all while trying to raise 3 teenage girls. Craziness right!
We had talked a lot about finding a way to utilize our property and acreage for playing and had many visions. Taking time off did not last long, we decided in 2019 that we were going to make our vision come alive, so we did a HUGE overhaul on our property. This project was touched by many hands, too many to name, but we could not have done it without our closest friends. Lots of blood, sweat, and yes…. even tears. We would like to give a shout out to Thomas Gibbins out of Summerton, SC for his brilliant designs, skillful woodwork, and countless hours.
Late 2019, we started Friday Night Lights Cornhole at our place and it has been a huge hit, everyone looks forward to Fridays. We have people traveling from all over to come to play and anyone is welcome. Please come see us! This project has been going on for over a year, but we are getting closer and closer to completion of “The Battleground”.
With anything, there are ups and downs, but we love what we do, and we have an AMAZING support system around us. The goal has always been to give everyone somewhere to play and keep everyone together. We will continue to try to make that happen. Josh and I always laugh and say that if we ever sell our house, the buyers better love cornhole. We are happy to announce that we will be returning to the ACO as Certified Officials this upcoming season. We support all leagues and look forward to seeing the continued growth.
