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I made this Storybook while we were still putting on our show at the Ramada Inn before they had built Area 51 (better known as the HOLE).
I've heard so many stories from participants about our homemade barn wood trophies! I guess having a "conversation piece" can be fun when friends come over! Did you win a trophy too? Write us and tell us your story!
Rick and Roz Pribbenow got a chance to visit us in 2012, and went home with the Club Participation trophy! Go Badgerlands! Rick helped Cal with judging, taking pictures, and anything else we needed help with. Thanks Rick and Roz! We miss ya'll!
Kenny Eaves made Truckers Choice trophies for the club for many years and you can tell that he put a lot of hard work into them. We miss his creativity, that's for sure! Gene and Barbara Ragsdale added some FUN to our trophy giving when they brought us the Bottom 3 trophy! The idea was for those who would never be able to afford all the glitz and glam on their truck, so this was a way to give credit to those who still loved their Effie's and drove them no matter what the paint job looked like! Barbara carved the hillbilly! Thanks Gene and Barbara! I LOVED this trophy too!
This was my favorite trophy to sponsor, plus I made it too (with some help from Cal off and on)! Sponsoring a trophy was a way to help support the club by paying for 1 trophy. Each person/company that sponsored a trophy got their names on that trophy.
An up close view of Kenny Eaves work! How beautiful is this! Thanks Kenny for your support!
What a great idea! I think I would be tempted to leave that hillbilly turned around! Thanks Gene and Barbara for the fun trophies! I'd love to have one for my desktop!
This was an older trophy made years ago and donated by another member. This one was in Memory of Eric Janke who owned Mega Bux.
The first year we decided to have a cookout in place of our live music. Mark wasn't able to play for us, so we had plenty of time to start the grills....which is exactly what the guys were starting to do! I never thought a hot dog could taste so good! The first year we ran out of buns, so we were prepared the second year!
So many things happened at the Ozarks Run show every year it's hard to remember them all. But it was fun getting a chance to see familiar faces each year and know that they were coming to our show to relax, kick back and see the friends they have known for many years and the new friends they got a chance to meet the current year.
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Cal and I used to tease each other about quitting the club so we could get a chance to go to a show without having to WORK it! No, that would never happen, but it would be fun to just drive down to Branson and kick back at the Fall Creek Inn again....who knows, we may just do it!
A shot from the second floor of the motel looking down at the trucks all parked in the back by the creek. The creek is to the left in with all the trees.
Fall Creek Inn & Suites is just a mile south of the Titantic, nestled in between 2 great restaurants so you don't have to go very far to get a good meal!
This tee is a knock off of the old logo for the truck club. I thought it would be a great idea to update it a bit and use if for our show shirts.
Dave Green (KC Obsolete Parts, Inc.) was one of our first sponsors.
Al & Janet Blume were also long time sponsors.
Shorty Hampton is a long time member also and has sponsored the club for many years too!
I jumped in to help sponsor the club shortly after I joined! It was just barely over a year when I started the clubs first website.
Sponsors pay $100 a year which goes to the club for expenses. Their company information is added to each newsletter so those who would like to use their services can find them.
It was my idea to incorporate the Hillbilly, which caused a lot of static from a few original members, but the idea stuck and remains to this day.
The crosseyed kitty comes from way back and since we hadn't seen him for a while we brought him back into the picture too! It was Renee's idea (from Prairie Mountain where our shirts were done), to put the kitty driving the '56 for our 25th Anniversary tee.
You'd be amazed at how many people didn't even notice him sitting there with his paws on the steering wheel!
The wood font was my idea also. I just couldn't see our tee-shirts looking like everyone else's you see when you go to a show. I mean, how many shows have barn wood trophies with a hand carved hillbilly on them? So of COURSE you need some more WOOD in the picture....right?! ;-)
We're in the Ozarks, so it was time to relax, have a good time, add a little humor and enjoy the weekend! That's exactly what we did!
It was the sale of our tee-shirts each year that paid for the following years show, so I decided to spruce things up a bit and that's what we did.
Sales from our tee-shirts skyrocketed and the first year I started working on them, our funding more than tripled. This was just what the club needed!
We had good quality shirts with fun designs on them that participants actually WANTED to wear. We started adding colors and were able to add larger sizes too....because our participants were growing also!
Thanks to Renee's knowledge and years of making tee's, we could give her ideas and she could help us turn those ideas into great designs!
This was our last Ozarks Run show shirt 2014. After putting on a show for 27 years, it was time to drive off into the sunset....at least for a while!
The club was started in 1984 and is still up and running!
Want to join us? Give us a call! We look forward to meeting more Effie lovers, no matter where you're from!
We may even have some T-shirts left from previous shows if you'd like to buy one!