ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 12, 1997 TAG: 9704140039
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FLOYD
SOURCE: MARK CLOTHIER THE ROANOKE TIMES
Owner Hubert Roberson doesn't want to give up the store, but shrinking volunteer cash flow leaves him no choice.
Relying on the kindness of strangers might work for some, but it may have spelled the end of the Friday Night Jamborees at Cockram's General Store.
The thousands who've packed the Floyd County landmark and spilled out its doors never had to pay to listen and dance to the bluegrass and gospel music being played inside. Store owner Hubert Roberson relied on a collection basket, the contents of which have dwindled in recent years.
Combine that shrinking volunteer cash flow with a little IRS trouble, and you know why Roberson put the Southwest Virginia cultural institution on the market earlier this week.
The asking price for the general store and adjoining Floyd Farm Service is $160,000. Whoever answers controls the jamborees' fate.
Roberson said the Friday night bashes will continue until the property is sold. After that, it's out of his hands.
"The new owner can do whatever they like to with it," Roberson said. "I'd like to see it keep going, but I can't keep it going myself. The outgo is more than the income. It's financial, just plain and simple. I hate to give it up, I really do."
The store also was no gold mine for its previous owner, Freeman Cockram, who sold it to Roberson in 1993. Cockram, 60, was heavily in debt at the time but stuck around to help run the place.
To keep space for the hoedowns, Cockram said, they kept a limited inventory in the store. Looking back, Cockram said, that might have been a mistake. The less you have to sell, the less you sell.
"But it brought so many people in and made so many people feel so good that you just do anything you can to keep it going," Cockram said. "And you just hoped people'd donate enough to keep it going."
Cockram said he and Roberson gave some thought to charging admission. But an earlier encounter with bureaucracy -when the health department told Cockram he couldn't sell hot dogs at the store - ended that.
"To charge, we'd have had to buy a license, and there's different red tapes that comes up, you know," Cockram said. "The anxiety we had to go through over the doggone hot dogs was enough. I don't believe the charge thing would've worked nohow."
In a manner befitting the jamborees' relaxed, family atmosphere, the gatherings started in the mid-1980s when Cockram and Roberson began playing inside the store for the love of it.
The bashes soon drew a weekly stream of musicians and listeners from every state and about 52 countries. "We once had 29 Russians here," Roberson said. "But there's been no Italians that I know of. Some Sicilians though."
The jamborees also drew Barbara and Jesse Thurman, Roanoke residents who have a weekend place in Floyd County. The jamborees, if ended, would be missed, she said.
"Those jamborees are like turning back the pages of time," she said. "It's just a neat little place; just an old country store with a wood floor that's ages and ages years old and flat-footers and an old man playing the spoons.
"It's just wonderful," she said. "Because you know they just love it with all their hearts."
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: THE ROANOKE TIMES/File 1992. Friday Night Jamborees atby CNBCockram's General Store drew a weekly stream of musicians and
listeners from every state and about 52 countries. color.