Our Story
1948 - Laddie
1991 - Bonnie
Laura's 1st Collie Casey 1982
Our story begins with a male collie puppy I received from Santa when I was eight. My favorite books were by Albert Payson Terhune so of course his name was Laddie. My favorite movie was ”Lassie Come Home”. And this was all I needed to fall in love with a collie.
Over the years our family had many different breeds, but the collie was always the favorite. I have so many great memories of our children gathering in front of the TV watching Lassie and Jeff, and later Timmy and their adventures with that amazing dog.
One Sunday afternoon my son came home with my next collie, Bonnie; a beautiful sable and white girl. He ran into a family with a litter of collie puppies born on my birthday so that was providence that this puppy should be mine. She went with me each morning to my private kindergarten and afterschool program that I owned and she was in collie heaven playing and herding children each day.
When my husband retired and we moved back to South Carolina after 30 years in Alabama; I decided it was time to have the breeding program I always desired. Without the help of a wonderful mentor, Mrs. Richmond (Bobbie) Fairbanks of Azalea Hill Collies our KEOWEE COLLIES would not exist.
I was determined to find a foundation bitch with an exceptional pedigree to start my breeding program. I traveled 800 miles to Twin Acres Collies in Illinois to find my Meg and named her Keowee's Southern Charm. She was bred to Ch. Azalea Hills Bradford; a Ch Fantasy’s Bronze Talisman son.
This breeding produced a litter of 7. Six finished their championship before they were two years old.
Twin Acres Southern Charm - "Meg"
Ch. Azalea Hills Bradford
Meg and Bradford Litter of 7
Our next litter for Meg we choose Ch. Southland Bowen Island, the winner of the Collie Club of America in 2003. That breeding produced our Ch. Keowee's Awesome Angus. Angus was the sire of many of our show dogs.
Keowee Collie's good fortune was the day I met a truly amazing young man at one of my first dog shows. Standing on the sidelines and watching a very inept me attempting to make my 7 month-old tri colored collie bitch move around the ring for her first time was Jim Holliday. He had shown collies since he was in elementary school and was wanting to get back into the ring after a long hiatus due to college, family and career. He needed some collies, and I desperately needed a handler! We were a good team. I got to raise the dogs and Jim got to travel on weekends with the dogs to the shows. He is truly "a collie whisperer". He never met a collie where there wasn't an immediate rapport. That special attachment brought 12 Champions and our Grand champion, Vivian in twelve years to Keowee Collies. Vivian, was #1 collie bitch in the country in 2014. I will forever be indebted to him for sharing his gift with us.
Jim Holiday and Vivan
GCh Rainbows Rising Karma at Weston
"Vivian"
Bred by Rainbow & Fantasy
New River's Carolina Connection at Keowee
"Sweet Bonnie"
The long illness of my husband and later his passing in 2014, put our breeding program on hold for several years. I am happy to say we have finally gotten back to what we love so much. In 2020 we purchased our new foundation bitch - New River's Carolina Connection at Keowee -"Sweet Bonnie".
Thank you, Elizabeth Lilly for our beautiful girl.
Our kennel is located at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, near where the old Cherokee Indian trading town of Keowee was located; hence the name - Keowee Collies.
