Chances are that in the near future your county will be visited by a member of one of the nation’s unique organizations. Officially listed in the Encyclopedia of Associations as the County Chasers of America, members of the organization share a common goal.

They want to visit every one of the 3,067 counties in the United States. To make it official, the informal “rules” require that a “Chaser” actually set foot in the county.

County Chasers are a special group. Driving out of one’s way to pick up a new county is standard behavior. Planning trips that whack off a dozen or so counties in one day is the goal of many members. Some eager chasers fly to places where they can rent a car and capture more counties.

There is a special group within the County Chasers who are not satisfied with counting a county unless they actually see the county court house. There are some Chasers who collect evidence from the courthouse proving they were there.

Some Chasers insist on a picture at the courthouse; others settle for a snapshot of themselves in front of a county line sign. There are probably hundreds of potential members of CCA out there. The organization was loosely put together in 1976. It has a name and even some officers.

The members, who are often in touch with one another, do not pay dues. There are no bylaws, and the biggest reward for county collecting is knowing that it has been accomplished.

Members are strictly on the honor system. Most of us keep track of the counties we have chased and collected by coloring in a map of the United States that outlines all counties. Whatever works is the rule of thumb.

One of the ways that membership has grown to the current 100-plus chasers is the annual listing in the Encyclopedia of Associations. But the fun-chasing members recruit members by word-of-mouth, for the most part.

The County Chasers of America sets as organizational goals, two straightforward policies. Members urge mapmakers to print accurate county lines (and we write them when they don’t). The second urging of members is to state departments of transportation to have public rest stops along major highways within reasonable distances.

Success to be had at the end of a long road
Do some people actually finish visiting all the counties? You bet they do. Let me tell you about two of them. One, a retired postmaster in Nevada, traveled to every county in the United States and proudly wrote to the Guinness Book of World Records that he had done so.

The esteemed publishers wrote back that they wanted pictorial evidence of his victorious journey. So the postmaster started out again. This time he had his camera in hand taking pictures at every county sign along the highway. The last county to be listed in his record book was in eastern South Dakota. By this time our favorite Chaser had reached octogenarian status. He celebrated his second success with his young driver.

Not too many years ago a resident of the Detroit suburbs finished his last county. The little island of Nantucket, however, was still not colored in. Our County Chaser decided to hold a family reunion for about 35 people. They had a large “coloring” ceremony for Nantucket — even though it is not a county of its own.

A word about Alaska. Because there are boroughs rather than counties, and because the roads in these boroughs often fade away into impassable areas, the association leaves it up to the county Chaser about how to deal with Alaska in the recording process.

Membership open to all
There are no special qualifications to become a County Chaser. True, it helps if you like to drive. It is probably important, and helpful, to have an understanding spouse. A lot of time is sometimes spent trying to determine which routes produce the most counties.

It helps too, to have a spouse or traveling companion who enjoys navigating, especially when unexpected bridge outages or incredibly long and circuitous detours suddenly loom in front of you. It is much more fun if you like to meet all kinds of people in this great country. And you will meet people, because once they hear what craziness you are up to they wrap you conversationally into their community and tell you things you could never hear otherwise.

One year, in a cattle-raising county in New Mexico, my husband and I stayed an entire day while the area residents came and went in a family-owned restaurant. I think we met everyone in town and their visiting guests as well. As a result, I can now talk for hours about breeding and feeding cattle. My listeners, of course, wonder how I know all of this.

County Chasers have to be on their toes. The county lines keep changing. When cities annex large areas, such as Virginia Beach and Norman, Okla., there are new situations. When Arizona divided Yuma County into two counties there were new situations, and only recently Colorado formed the new county of Broomfield.

How the ‘chasing’ started
No one can definitely state how the County Chasers of America came into being. We usually say that it simply combusted or “evoluted” along the way. Chance conversations with students at George Mason University in Northern Virginia led to the discovery that many of us pursue our county chasing with a passion.

Later, some professors decided the membership was well above 100 Chasers and it was time to give the group a real identity by naming it, publishing our existence in the encyclopedia and designing a logo for T-shirts proclaiming our membership to all we meet as we cross county lines.

There are two things about county chasing that I dearly love, One, of course, is seeing this fabulous country of ours in ways that bring our similarities and our diversity into view — all against a backdrop of unparalleled changing scenery. The other thing is how quickly we make friends with new people when they find out we have been to their very own home county and can remember something about it that they treasure.

Age is no prerequisite, neither is a driver’s license if you have a willing wheel wielder. We just have fun and feel incredibly proud when we can grab our colored pencils and color in our maps.

As for my record, when I was 10 years old, I told myself that I would complete the journey in the year 2000. I have not quite made that goal. It now stands at 100 percent county coverage in 32 states. My maps are ready for the next round and my car is gassed up.

As a summary of what county chasing is about, I would like to give special thanks to the fine young highway patrolman in Tennessee who was ready to ticket me for speeding (big time), but when he learned what I was up to on that sunny Sunday morning, he settled for a warning and a few words of admiration. He is now a member.