After 4 days on airlift, radio host nets 450 bikes, toys and helmets for local kids in need

Devon Ravine, Northwest Florida Daily News
·3 min read

FORT WALTON BEACH — To a cheering crowd and a live radio audience, Highway 98 Country radio host Scott Mallory brought the 2021 Bikes or Bust campaign to its conclusion at Uptown Station on Monday afternoon when he descended from the scissor lift that had been his home for the past four days.

This is the 11th year the radio station has put on the Christmas bicycle and toy drive and the third time Mallory has spent a 98-hour stretch living atop a tiny platform in the sky.

Highway 98 Country radio host Scott Mallory celebrates the conclusion of the station's 2021 Bikes or Bust Christmas bicycle and toy drive Monday at Uptown Station in Fort Walton Beach. Mallory had spent the previous 98 hours living atop a small scissor lift to promote the four-day event.
Highway 98 Country radio host Scott Mallory celebrates the conclusion of the station's 2021 Bikes or Bust Christmas bicycle and toy drive Monday at Uptown Station in Fort Walton Beach. Mallory had spent the previous 98 hours living atop a small scissor lift to promote the four-day event.

Previously: Fort Walton Beach DJ to live four days in the sky for annual Bikes or Bust bicycle drive

Event from 2020: Bikes or Bust gathers hundreds of bikes for kids in need

“Yesterday at 6 p.m. I just hit the wall hard,” he said. “But I knew that we’d got through the worst of it and I had perfect weather, so I can’t complain.”

And from his perch 30 feet in the air, he could clearly see the fruits of his labor grow.

“The highlight is seeing people come in and drop off these bikes and thinking, for each bike that you see, there’s going to be a kid on Christmas morning getting on that bike,” Mallory said.

Highway 98 Country radio host Scott Mallory stands atop a scissor lift at Uptown Station in Fort Walton Beach as he surveys some 450 bicycles that were collected during Highway 98 Country's Bikes or Bust Christmas bicycle and toy drive.
Highway 98 Country radio host Scott Mallory stands atop a scissor lift at Uptown Station in Fort Walton Beach as he surveys some 450 bicycles that were collected during Highway 98 Country's Bikes or Bust Christmas bicycle and toy drive.

This year’s event netted about 450 bicycles, ranging from tricycles to bikes for teenagers.

John Griffo, general sales manager at JVC Broadcasting, which owns Highway 98 Country, said about 30 volunteers helped to make the four-day event a success.

“A lot of these bikes had to be assembled,” Griffo said.

On Friday, the first day of the event, there were about 100 boxed bicycles that needed to be put together. Griffo said airmen from Hurlburt Field’s 1st Special Operations Logistics Readiness Squadron made short work of it.

Airman 1st Class Nathaniel Aleshire and Senior Airman Kristen DeWitt assemble one of the approximately 450 bicycles that were donated during Highway 98 Country's Bikes or Bust Christmas bicycle and toy drive at Uptown Station in Fort Walton Beach.
Airman 1st Class Nathaniel Aleshire and Senior Airman Kristen DeWitt assemble one of the approximately 450 bicycles that were donated during Highway 98 Country's Bikes or Bust Christmas bicycle and toy drive at Uptown Station in Fort Walton Beach.

“These guys are rock stars,” Griffo said. “The bikes were all put together by eight or nine-o-clock that night.”

In addition to the bicycles, Bikes or Bust also received more than 600 bicycle helmets collected by the family of Kohltan Ward, an 11-year-old Destin boy who died in October 2020 from injuries he suffered in a bicycle accident. About 100 of those helmets were donated to the Fort Walton Beach Police Department so officers who encounter youths riding bicycles without helmets could provide them with one on the spot.

The bicycles, helmets and toys will be distributed through a variety of agencies to families in need in Okaloosa and Walton counties, said Toys for Tots Coordinator Casey Tetman.

Within a few minutes of the event’s end, Tetman was already overseeing the distribution of bicycles to various organizations, including the Guardian Ad Litem program, the FamiliesFirst Network, The The Matrix Community Outreach Center, the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Emerald Coast and Youth Village.

From there, the bikes and other toys will find their way to families in need in Okalooa and Walton counties.

After descending from a scissor lift at Uptown Station where he'd spent the past 98 hours, Highway 98 Country radio host Scott Mallory (right) is photographed by co-worker Bo Reynolds at the conclusion of the station's Bikes or Bust Christmas bicycle and toy drive. Reynolds is a veteran of several past Bikes or Bust events.
After descending from a scissor lift at Uptown Station where he'd spent the past 98 hours, Highway 98 Country radio host Scott Mallory (right) is photographed by co-worker Bo Reynolds at the conclusion of the station's Bikes or Bust Christmas bicycle and toy drive. Reynolds is a veteran of several past Bikes or Bust events.

“We cannot purchase them (bikes) for Toys for Tots because because of the dollar value,” said Tetman. “So when they host a bike drive like this and we can get them donated it’s great.”

And for his part, Mallory was ready for a well-deserved, albeit short rest.

“I’m going to go back home home, shower, nap, shower again and then go back to work,” Mallory said as he surveyed the sea of colorful bicycles surrounding his lift.

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Highway 98 Country's 'Bikes or Bust' toy drive gets 450 bikes, helmets