Alum hits the road with 1 million viewers

Chris Bainbridge ’02 and his red Mustang convertible have turned up in towns like Bryson City, North Carolina; Oliver Springs, Tennessee; Anderson, South Carolina; and Macon, Georgia. He’s been bowling, curling, ziplining, fishing, rappelling, snow tubing and spelunking. He’s revisited Marion, his childhood home in the North Carolina mountains, and he’s waved to his alma mater from a bike on Greenville’s Swamp Rabbit Trail.

In the past two years, Bainbridge has taken almost 100 day trips, and he has brought more than 1 million TV viewers along for the ride. As the host of “The Ingles Open Road,” the Furman alumnus is on a mission to showcase local attractions, adventures and activities throughout the Carolinas and surrounding areas.

“It’s been a fun ride,” he said.

As vice president of production for Asheville, North Carolina-based Bclip Productions, Bainbridge is also the point person for all video projects for Ingles Markets, the regional supermarket chain headquartered in nearby Black Mountain.

In 2020, COVID-19 shutdowns were triggering a wave of cabin fever among Ingles’ customers, while also threatening the livelihoods of many of the region’s small business owners. “When the pandemic first hit, grocery stores were almost the only things that were open,” Bainbridge remembered.

To meet the moment, Ingles’ advertising director, Melissa Leavell, came to Bclip with a concept for a series of three-minute segments that would run for a few months on a local TV station.

“They wanted to provide a place where people could learn about fun, cool, family-friendly things that they could get out and do during a pandemic, while at the same time shining a light on local businesses who were really hurting at that time,” Bainbridge said. “And the last thing they said after pitching the idea was, ‘And Chris, we’d like you to host it.’”

Not such a far-fetched idea, as it turned out. At Furman, Bainbridge, who double-majored in communication studies and political science (now known as politics and international affairs), got plenty of experience in front of the camera as the host of a show with a remarkably similar theme.

Bainbridge produced the “Get Around Greenville” video segments during the early days of FurmanTV – which would evolve into today’s Furman University News Channel – with the help of Jeff Zellmer ’04, currently the senior vice president of digital operations for FOX Television Stations.

“We would go out once a week or so and find stuff to go do off campus – horseback riding, hiking, downtown exploration, things of that nature,” Bainbridge said. “It was kind of a Wild West for us. Not quite as sophisticated as what I’ve got going now.”

These days, Bainbridge and the Bclip crew have many more miles to cover in his 1966 Mustang, including western North Carolina, upstate South Carolina, east Tennessee and northern Georgia, all areas served by the Ingles supermarket chain. His “teeny tiny TV show” now reaches 1.2 million viewers a week through six stations throughout the Southeast, airing during times such as local news broadcasts or game-day halftime breaks. Each segment (during many of which Bainbridge is sure to recommend one particular grocery store for picnic supplies) is also posted on the show’s website, openroadshow.com.

The upcoming 100th episode of “Open Road” will be a retrospective – “a look back at all the places we’ve gone, with montages of some fun activities, some family activities and some adventure activities,” Bainbridge said. “And then a very long montage of me eating lots and lots of things.”

There are many more places Bainbridge want to take his 1.2 million viewers, including a canyon in Georgia, a paddleboat river tour in Knoxville and a certain football stadium in Greenville.

“I would love to do a show with all of the things that happen with Furman home games – the players’ walk, the marching band, the tailgating scene, the football,” he said.

But for Bainbridge, the best stops on a trip tend to be the unexpected ones.

“The really fun things are the ones that aren’t on my radar, the things that just pop up, where I say, ‘Wow, that’s really cool, I wouldn’t have thought to do that,’” he said. “That’s really the essence of the show. That’s what we hope to share with people. Discovery is always the most fun part.”