By Mark Cowling | Florence Reminder-Tribune
When Bob Felkins bought his ranch on Price Road almost four years ago, he knew he’d have to deal with Country Thunder every year.
“It’s real loud,” Felkins said, referring to not only the music, but the fans. There’s also the bottles and other trash some of the 25,000 festival-goers leave behind. But Felkins and his wife, Karen, say that isn’t the half of it.
Fans believe the Felkins ranch is all part of the fun as they trespass to picnic and camp, at times cutting barbed wire to get to the spots they’ve picked out. One year they stole the ranch’s two quads.
Country Thunder itself is just as bad or worse, the Felkinses said. Bob said they won’t meet with him to work out amicable terms for using the irrigation well the landlord owns but they legally share. He claims at least once they crashed right through his automatic gate to reach the well.
