In 1994, Marie (Burns) Powell, who had been raised on Green Hill above Ireland, WV, traveled with her son, David, to the Country of Ireland. There, in Cork City at Sheehan's Hardware Store, they purchased six Irish road bowls to bring back to West Virginia for the next year's Irish Spring Festival. A practice match on February 19, 1995, played by "Buzz" Denton King, Sharrey Craig, Beckey Posey, Don Gain, Ken Wood, and other Irish Spring Festival volunteers, confirmed that this strange sport was a lot of fun. The course, Wildcat Road to Duffy Bridge, was 2.2 miles long. Fourteen more road bowls were imported from Ireland.