Boy who attempted Christmas card record dies

Dalton Dingus, a little boy from rural Kentucky whose dying wish to set a record for receiving the most Christmas cards earned him support from around the world, has died. He was nine.

Dalton, who succumbed to a lifelong battle with cystic fibrosis, received more than 500,000 cards from all over the world, his family said. At a funeral service last Wednesday, many of those cards decorated the Bethlehem to Cavalry Apostolic Church in Salyersvile, Kentucky, Kathy Smithers, a resident who attended the ceremony, told ABCNews.com.

"There were lots and lots of people there," said Smithers. "Members of the police department, and the fire department, and the sheriff. It felt like the whole town was here."

Dalton's illness, his positive attitude and his goal to set a Guinness World Record first inspired his neighbours in Salyersvile and then the world. A Facebook post asking friends to send cards to Dalton went viral, picked up by a local newspaper and then media from as far away as Israel and Ireland, South Dakota and South Korea.

In the days before Christmas, there were so many letters pouring in that a local television reporter with his own truck delivered the cards that could not fit in the mail carrier's van. Dalton's house became so filled with letters that at first neighbours and then his family's church would accept the mail and sort it.

-ABCNews.com