Johnston County man
turns hobby into business By Randy Capps
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LAYTON — Perhaps you’ve tossed an airmail, right after a dirty, on a crisp, fall afternoon at a college football
Or maybe you’ve just played cornhole and need a little help knowing that an airmail is when you throw the bag straight into the hole, and a dirty is when it lands short of the board. Either way, you’re going to need a set of boards. A sign on a building on Cleveland Road tells a visitor he’s arrived at Johnston County Cornhole, and inside, working over a slick blue board that will soon have a Honda Racing stripe is George Paris. Paris owns the business, which started about 12 years ago in his garage — not terribly far from his current location. “I flipped a house in Clayton, and doing that, I went back home,” he said. “I’m from Iowa and my wife’s from Illinois, and we went home, and people were playing this game. Never even seen it before. I played it, liked it and came back home. There was like one guy making them. He was retired, and he was making two or three sets a week.” Bitten by the cornhole bug, Paris had no intention of waiting that long. He went and bought the necessary supplies and made an interesting discovery. “When you make a set, you start with a piece
