The Shelby County Crimestoppers and STAR Touring and Riding Chapter #110 are holding their 6th Annual non-alcoholic Pop-Stop-Marble Run. That run which is a fundraiser for Crimestoppers will be held on Saturday, June 20. Proceeds for Crimestoppers comes from the $10 registration fee.

The first stop and starting point on the Marble Run is Casey’s gas station in Tower Hill. At that stop, registration starts at 9:30 a.m. and the ride leaves Casey’s at 10:30 a.m. The riders will receive 2 tickets at registration and one ticket will be for the door prize and the other ticket is for the pork chop sandwich and drink given to the riders at the end of the run. The run will end up at Forest Park in Shelbyville.

This motorcycle run does not stop at bars but instead stops at gas stations, grocery stores, and ice cream shops when the route permits.

The other stops and sponsors of the run will include the Herrick Fast Stop, Cowden Country Mart, Shelbyville Chamber of Commerce and Wades Quality Meats.

The marble run is very similar to a poker run but instead of receiving playing cards the riders received different colored marbles.

The winner of the Marble Run is determined by the color of the marbles. The way it works is at each stop there is a marble shaker with six different colored marbles. When turned upside down the participant only sees one of the colored marbles. That marble’s color is recorded on the run card. When the run is over, a control set of marbles is dumped into a helmet and then drawn out one at a time. The first marble is worth a point value of 1, the second is worth 5, the third is 10, the fourth is 15, fifth is 20 and the sixth is worth 25 points. After the drawing, each participant adds up the value of their run cards and high score wins.

Bill Calvert, Maintenance Director at the Shelby County Detention Center is organizing the run through STAR Touring.

STAR Touring was conceived in 1995 and founded in 1996 as a international family riding organization. All brands of motorcycles are welcome but the main sponsor of STAR is Yamaha Motorcycles.

Sheriff Michael Miller said his office and Crimestoppers are grateful to STAR Touring for their help in this event.

“Their efforts are wonderful. They get riders from as far away as St. Louis and Indiana that come for this ride,” said Miller.

Calvert said he helps organize this event because the proceeds go to Crimestoppers.

“Crimestoppers uses these funds to help pay the rewards in this program,” said Calvert. “Crimestoppers does not use any tax money in their program and rely on events such as this fund raiser and also from donations given to the program.”

Calvert said another Marble Run is planned for late summer or fall.

“The proceeds from that run in the fall will be split between Crimestoppers and Shelbyville Police Dispatcher Penny Standerfer’s program for pet adoption,” continued Calvert.