Murphey's Annual Toy Run

About this event

Eight bikers turned up for the first one, in 1995, outside a backroad motorcycle shop five miles out of Kings Mountain. Murphey's Scooter Shed on Camelot Court has run it every year since, and by 2001 the local paper was counting more than two hundred and seventy-five riders in the yard. No founder is named - the Herald has always credited the shop rather than a person - but the beneficiaries have stayed constant: the Shriners burn centre, the Masonic Home for Children at Oxford, and the Christmas programmes of the Kings Mountain police and the Cleveland County sheriff. Ten dollars and a new toy gets you in, with a barbecue afterwards at no charge. Riders gather at eleven and roll at noon under escort, out along Phifer and Bethlehem roads, through Grover and down Dixon Boulevard, with a stop at the Masonic lodge on Landing Street to hand the toys over. Police, the sheriff's office, the rescue squad and Bethlehem fire all ride along. The picture is the one it has been for thirty years: a column leaving a shop yard at noon with toys strapped to sissy bars.