Quick Poll

Do you think the City of Newnan should have waited until at least mid-month to begin hanging its Christmas decorations in downtown rather than the first week in November?

Blogs

Angela McRae

Tea with friends

Deberah Williams

Everyday Finesse

Lorrie Lynch

Who's News

Published Sunday, May 04, 2008 in Local

Photo by Amy Riley

Colby Doler, seated, Zech Barton, wearing the hat, and Cory Craig, at right, make posts to the group’s Web site, www.theamericandocumentary.com, where details of the planned trek across the U.S. promise a world of adventure for the documentary team.

Young men plan to walk across the U.S.

By Amy Riley

The Times-Herald

Grantville resident Colby Doler, 19, a budding filmmaker, is planning the trip of a lifetime -- a four- to five-month walking trek across the United States to film a documentary "The America Less Traveled."

Doler and three other Grantville residents and fellow graduates of Newnan High School: Zecheriah Barton, 20; Cory Craig, 19; and James Haney, 21, plan to set out on foot, starting in Grantville, in August on a path that will take them all the way to Los Angeles by way of smalltown America.

Doler, son of Joseph (J. C.) and Felicia Doler, is kicking off a sponsorship drive this month under the auspices of the Grantville Veterans Association, a non-profit organization serving as the documentary's fiscal sponsor.

Doler has been planning the trip for more than a year, researching his path and contacting mayors of small cities to let them know the hiking quartet, complete with video camera and state-of-the-art hiking gear, is headed their way.

"The point of this trip is to find and film the heart of America," said Doler, "to film each town and its people and let them tell their story." Doler is seeking the stories that may have been lost after the advent of the Interstate system, stories that the mainstream population misses.

He sites Grantville, with its old architecture and people with great stories, as his inspiration.

"I've only recently begun to realize how much other people have to tell," he said.

Doler, who has spent the two years since his 2006 graduation studying scriptwriting and filmmaking, is into the communicative arts, as are the other three young men making the trip with him. As the former president of Grantville Performing Arts, Doler wrote and directed his own play, "Knight," which was performed and filmed during a three-night run in December 2006 at the Sara O'Kelley Auditorium in Grantville.

"I have other plays I'd like to do, but right now I'm focused on the documentary," Doler said.

Doler has already established a Web site, www.theamericandocumentary.com, on which he is blogging about trip plans. During the trip, one of Doler's friends will run a home base and Web site out of LaGrange, shipping gear and supplies to the hikers, receiving and uploading digital footage, and maintaining a digital diary of the hikers' journey, with a one-week lag time for safety's sake.

"My family really doesn't like the idea," said Cory Craig. "I think they have safety concerns. But we're going to be smart about our trip and limit our walks to 10 hours a day during daylight hours.

The group hopes to identify host families and/or organizations in the small towns that would be willing to put the group up for the night along the way. Doler has been in contact with veterans groups through the American Legion.

Part of the purpose of the trip is to highlight the benefits of walking and hiking, "how fun hiking can be," said Doler.

The group conditions regularly and plans training walks to Carrollton and Atlanta over two weekends in May.

The group's checkpoints are larger cities and are scheduled no more than a week apart. The trip follows a north, northwest trajectory, then swings toward the desert southwest just in time for the coming of the colder months. Some of the checkpoint cities along the first half of the journey include Nashville, Little Rock, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kansas, and North Platte, Nebraska. The second half takes them through Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming; Helena, Montana; Boise, Idaho; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Las Vegas.

But it's the small towns in between that are the focus of the film.

Doler hopes to hold a screening at the Centre for Performing and Visual Arts in Newnan after the group returns and edits the final cut. Doler, who works at the Carmike Cinemas in LaGrange, and used to work at the Carmike in Newnan, envisions a polished documentary that they hope to shop around to film festivals, including Sundance.

Sponsorships/donations, made payable to the Grantville Veterans Association, and mailed to P.O. Box 511, Grantville, GA 30220, are tax deductible; larger investors will receive contracts for a percentage on the backside should the documentary be picked up for distribution. To find out more about "The America Less Traveled," Colby Doler can be reached at 404-451-5876.

Comment On This Story

Times-Herald.com does not necessarily agree with the comments posted below. Responsibility of comments rests solely with the writer. Comments posted in ALL CAPS will be deleted.

Submission of a comment does not guarantee publication. Comments will be posted by a moderator after being scanned for abusive language, relevance, etc. See our Comments FAQ for more details.