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EDEN - The weather was sunny, the river was inviting but the event, “Sunday Afternoon on a Lazy River,” didn’t exactly attract an overflow crowd.

Only one person showed up for the afternoon float along the Smith and Dan rivers to benefit the Charlie Poole Music Festival last Sunday, one of the annual festival’s closing events.

“I think a lot of folks that came here for the festival from out of the area left to go back home in the morning,” said Mark Bishopric, an officer with the Dan River Basin Association , which sponsored the float in partnership with Three Rivers Outfitters. “It probably wasn’t the best timing.”

But the two groups plan to continue offering such outings as a way to spread the word about the many splendors of the basin and its recreational opportunities.

“We’re really trying to pull in people from outside this area,” said Katherine Mull, the Dan River Basin Association’s executive director.

For those who missed last Sunday’s event, Mull’s group and Three Rivers are hosting another float next Saturday in partnership with the Silverfish, a group of area paddlers.

It’s all part of a strategy to improve the river region’s economic structure by capitalizing on the scenic beauty, recreational options and potential business tie-ins, said Bishopric.

“Recreation is just a piece of it that people can easily relate to,” said Bishopric, president of Spray Cotton Mills. “Equally important is helping our area — not just this county, but the area — become a more self-sustaining place where people come to create business opportunities and build a stronger economic foundation.”

Founded in 2002 as an all-volunteer operation, the nonprofit Dan River Basin Association, or DRBA, now has a staff of six paid employees who work to preserve the Dan system’s environmental quality as well as look for ways it can accommodate recreation, commerce and other forms of growth.

“Most of the time when river conservation groups form, it’s because of some perceived problem or threat,” said Jeff Johnston, DRBA’s past president and co-owner of Three Rivers Outfitters in Eden. “We formed without any specific threat. We formed saying, ‘Let’s take care of the river before it’s a problem.’”

The group is just about to publish a new guidebook to the river basin, nicely illustrated and full of water-resistant maps, Mull said.

The 54-page book, focusing on the river system’s nature and heritage, should be ready for distribution soon and will help DRBA spread the word about the river basin’s allure, she said.

The benefit effort for last weekend’s Poole festival is a good example of the way DRBA teams up with other nonprofit groups in the region, said Louise Price, co-creator of the festival that honors one of the region’s most famous bluegrass musicians.

The music festival dovetails with DRBA because Rockingham County’s musical heritage is directly related to its abundant water supply, Price said.

The rivers brought the textile mills, and the mills brought together people from many backgrounds and diverse musical traditions, helping Poole to forge the style that brought him widespread fame in the 1920s.

River boosters are hoping for a better turnout for next weekend’s float along the Smith and Dan rivers, Bishopric said.

The float will have something of a scavenger-hunt theme with boaters competing to collect “doubloons” at various stations along the route, with prizes going to the highest scorers.

Proceeds from the float next Saturday will benefit DRBA’s work along the river, from building trails to planting trees and conducting cleanup drives.

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com