It seems that although an annual reunion of the Hatfields and McCoys fills the Pikeville, Kentucky hotels with visitors each June, the City Council of Pikeville will not say "yes" to placing a statue of Randolph McCoy, patriarch of the Kentucky hillbilly McCoy clan, in a city park.
Pikeville resident James Smith said many people feel placing the statue in the park would be romanticizing criminal behaviour. "I don't believe we should be putting up the statue," Smith said. "Killing is killing. It doesn't matter how you do it." Instead, according to one of the McCoy descendants, the life-sized, bronze statue will be placed in a cemetery on the outskirts of town.On an interesting note: at the annual reunion, the two families still battle one another: in a softball game and a tug-of-war contest ... but still keeping those rifles in the gun cabinet. Posted by Tiger at April 26, 2003 11:20 PM