View From The Houseboat—A Shout-Out To Those (Really) Behind the Kuttawa Cannonball Run

By his own admission Stephen Miles does almost nothing to make the Kuttawa Cannonball Run happen. He’s told me that for years.

But just to be extra sure, I checked again with the top-notch powerboat graphics man today on the houseboat he and his wife, Heather, co-own with their friends, Donnie and Cara MacLeod, at the raft-up for this year’s Kuttawa, Ky., event.

I stopped counting boats, both tied to the houseboat and rafted in their own rows, at 80-something high-performance center consoles, catamarans and sportboats off Prizer Point Marina on Lake Barkley. Chances are, that count is low as more than 180 boats are registered for this year’s event. On-site registration is open until tomorrow morning so the probability of the final count topping 200 boats is high.

But back to Miles, who only agreed to speak with me if we stuck to his fellow event founder/organizers Jeff Hoefling, Terry Martin and anyone other than him.

On Terry Martin:

On the record? (laughs) In my opinion he is a social media genius when it comes to promoting this event and making sure our sponsors feel like they got great value for their money.

On Jeff Hoefling:

Jeff is an amazing organizer. He’s a get-stuff-done kind of guy.

On auctioneer Nolan Ferris:

While he doesn’t put in the kind of time Terry and Jeff do, his natural talent is amazing and the charities love him. He puts money in the bank for them.

On his wife, Heather:

She keeps me alive. We entertain on the houseboat during the event till 2 a.m. It wouldn’t happen without her and Cara and Donnie.

On the growth of the event:

I never expected it. I thought it would be a local thing. I thought the bulk of our fleet would be 25-foot Baja Outlaws. Until speedonthewater.com blew it up and made it a big deal, it wasn’t. We would have succeeded but we had help along the way.

On the Kuttawa Cannonball Run’s future:

Where do we go from here? I think we go wherever Jeff, Terry, our participants and our amazing sponsors take us. And none of this happens without Wayne and Lisa Breedlove who own Hu-B’s at Kuttawa Harbor, our host marina. As for me? I’m just along for the ride.