By Jessi Mancini
For The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
Parkersburg – A former Parkersburg man this month completed a goal he hopes will show people there’s hope despite facing problems that may seem to be insurmountable, including school debt.
Brian Bollinger, 52, of Oakland, Md., on Aug. 14 completed a tour of the eastern most, western most, northern most and southern-most points of the contiguous United States. He traveled alone in a 2025 Toyota Corolla nearly 11,000 miles.
Marlana, his wife, stayed at home.
“My wife is a doctor and delivered seven babies while I was gone,” he said. “She was stressed in another way.”
Bollinger helps students and families at West Virginia University, including at WVU Tech and Potomac State College, with financial issues, often seeing student loan debts in the thousands of dollars, one owing around $1.8 million.
People in those situations face dire and worrisome times that take an emotional toll on them, Bollinger said.
“I’ve seen these shackles on them,” Bollinger, the son of David and Kimberly Bollinger, said. “They can hold you back.”
Bollinger and his wife have two children, Benjamin and Elizabeth. He is a 1993 graduate of Parkersburg South High School and a graduate of West Virginia Wesleyan University.
Sometimes people need to do something to make them feel better, such as doing something they’ve always wanted to do, just to prove to themselves that they can do it, he said. They see they accomplished one goal, so perhaps they can accomplish another, Bollinger said.
“I’m grateful to help people navigate through when they think there’s no way out,” Bollinger said. “Sometimes the right support can make things possible.”
Bollinger went to Angle Inlet, Minn., the northern-most point of the United States, on May 25. The other three points on the compass were completed in August. He carried a sign with him, “Lets Go WV,” that is gold and blue with the Flying WVU Logo, which he planted at all points.
The southern-most point was Key West, Fla., on Aug. 4. The eastern-most point was on Aug. 7 at the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse in Lubec, Maine. The western-most point was at Cape Alava at Olympic National Park in Washington State on Aug. 14.
Cape Alava was the most difficult, he said. Unlike the other points, there’s no signs at Cape Alava and access is a trail just over 3 miles long, Bollinger said.
“It is extremely remote,” he said.
He was not prepared and the hike was not as easy as it appeared. It was hot and he got extremely thirsty.
“I misjudged hiking 3.1 miles to the beach,” he said. “I was not prepared. I didn’t have water. I started to cramp. My lips became parched.”
While he could drive to the other points, this wasn’t the case at Cape Alava, Bollinger said. The lack of signs compounded the problems, he said.
“All there is are coordinates on a map,” Bollinger said. “There is no western-most point signage.”
Bollinger said he gets his desire for travel from his great-grandmother Leafie Stoops of Gallipolis, whose goal was to travel to all 50 states. She died two states short, Alaska and Hawaii, he said.
“I was very close to her growing up,” Bollinger said.
Bollinger also was inspired by the movie “Cannonball Run” starring Burt Reynolds. The Cannonball Run is an illegal race with participants driving as fast they can from New York to California, about 2,800 miles.
As a child, he often watched the movie with his father. It remains among his favorites.
“I was really inspired by that movie,” Bollinger said.
Read more from The Parkersburg News and Sentinel, here.
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