Redneck Products'
Adventures in
Redneck Holler

As past and present residents of the Stoco communities gather Saturday for an annual reunion, they'll talk about old times and old friends.

One of those old friends just might be Roger Allen, an Abney native who left the area after his father died in a 1959 coal mining accident. Allen now lives in Florida and runs a business called Redneck Products.

Allen prefers his story be told by Rodney Redneck, one of the characters he created for T-shirts and other products.

"Like I said, my name's Rodney Redneck, but I'm not just any old redneck," Allen writes on his company's Web site, www.redneckproducts.com "I was born in the mind of Roger Allen, a West 'Virginy' coal miner's son. Now, I 'heerd' that folks around Abney, West Virginia, says that Roger's always been a lil' strange, and one day he took off for California 'cause he heard that's where all the gold is. He packed up his guitar, his pack of songs and got in his old Chevy and headed west, no job, no money and no idea what he was gonna do when he got there."

But, when he got there, Allen had success performing country music, or "singin' 'fer' his supper," as Rodney Redneck likes to call it. Eventually, Allen gained popularity and began his own country music television show. It wasn't long before a song by his motorcycle ridin' buddy, Ray Nelson (creator of the Guitcycle, a guitar you can ride), inspired Roger to come up with a line of redneck T-shirts, hats and other products that depict a unique family of characters such as Redneck Fisherman, Redneck Trucker, and about 23 other members of the redneck bunch.

Allen contacted an artist named Larsen, who helped him draw the characters he had envisioned. By the early 1980s, Redneck Products were being sold across the United States --Mainly at festivals, racing events, and fairs.

"They're real popular," he said. "Moms love buying the Lil' Redneck T-shirts for the kids, and the Redneck Fisherman and four-wheeler are popular everywhere we go."

His wife, Fay, who happens to be an artist and most recently a comic book creator, has expanded the Redneck family tree to include little Rednecks and a line of children's clothes. The couple and their business partner, Mark Redlon, travel throughout the country in their "Redneck Limo," a 1979 Winnebago, selling Redneck Products.

Allen says he's proud of his heritage and his business. West Virginia is where my roots are," he said, "and it always will be. These products aren't slurring people. They have no racial attachment. Otherwise, I wouldn't be promoting them. We sold these things in San Jose, California, and they loved them there. In Pennsylvania, they loved us. We have yet to have any controversy over it."

Redneck Products are not an insult to any group of people, he added; rather they're just a fun way to look at life.

Webster's Dictionary defines a redneck as "a poor farmer or sharecropper from the South" Allen said, "Most people, when they hear the word redneck, think of a person with a pick-up truck, beer and a dog... West Virginia considers itself the Mountaineer State, but people still call West Virginians hillbillies. A lot of times, people relate rednecks to hillbillies... It's all humorous. That's absolutely what it's all about."

Or, as Rodney Redneck puts it: "...we ain't' makin' no political or social statements with our Redneck Family. We was created for fun!"