| President | Floyd Getchell | [email protected] | 928-792-3894 |
| Secretary | Mark Rippon | [email protected] | 480-250-5682 |
| Treasurer | Tom Gismondi | [email protected] | |
| Director | Garret Christian | [email protected] | |
| Director | Steve Carlson | [email protected] | 602-769-1655 |
| Director | Sam Queen | [email protected] | |
| Web Support | Andrew Clark | [email protected] | 602-206-1126 |
| Stampede Chairman | Marcus Getchell | [email protected] | 928-792-3896 |
The Arizona Classic
Bronco Club’s purpose is to provide a resource to Bronco owners who would like to meet other Bronco enthusiasts and share in their “Bronco” experience.
The Arizona Classic Bronco club was founded in 1991 by Dec Thackston. It was originally limited to owners of the 66-77 model year broncos, but has since been opened
up to owners of all years of the Ford Bronco including the Bronco II. You can read a history of the club written by Dec below. Our members are a diverse group and enjoy all facets of these Broncos. From extreme rock crawling to car shows.
Arizona Classic Bronco holds monthly club meetings to discuss club business and schedule our monthly trail runs. Check out our calendar of events and see what’s going on. We also have our annual celebration called the “Stampede” held in March.
Dues for becoming a member are $50 a year and you can register here on-line. The only requirement is that you currently own a Ford Bronco. Membership in ACB also includes membership in the Arizona State Association of 4 wheel drive clubs (asa4wdc). Once a member you will be able to post to the forum, see the member list with contact information, as well as see the monthly newsletter, the Bronco Roundup.
Benefits of Membership
What are the benefits of membership? The biggest benefit of club membership is the camaraderie of other Bronco Drivers. You will enjoy the friendships you will make in the club and the knowledge you will gain from other club members. $25 of your membership fee goes to the Arizona State Association of Four Wheel Drive Clubs, that provides our insurance coverage for our club events and helps to support our lobbyist at the State legislature and their other efforts to keep our trails open. Your club membership keeps you in contact with what is going on with the public land issues, and allows us to donate money to groups who are working to keep our trails open. You receive a reduced rate for the Stampede registration fee. Your membership enables you to access our website for current News Letters, and to add comments on activities. We could not have a Stampede without a good strong membership. It costs between $15,000 and $16,000 to put on the Stampede. That is way to much money for just a few individuals to risk to put on the Stampede. Club members are eligible for partial reimbursement of gasoline expense for traveling to out of state Bronco events. Your club membership keeps you in contact with other people for trips, events, mutual assistance on projects, and allows you find new limits for your Bronco, with friends along to help you if you screw up. Plus your participation in the club helps keep the memory of a great vehicle alive and spreads good will toward 4-wheelers when we participate in trail clean-ups, provide raffle items to other organizations, and donate to charity.A chronological history and the creation of the Arizona Classic Bronco ClubBy Dec Thackston
April 21, 1991 an advertisement was placed in The Arizona Republic’s classified section asking for people who were interested in forming a club, dedicated to the Early Ford Bronco, to please respond to the listed phone number. The initial response was rather sparse, somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 people. On the 27th a similar ad was placed with even a smaller number of people answering. Because of the lack of interest it was decided to abandon the idea. However my wife, who was later to become the first secretary/treasurer, encouraged me to continue trying. Contact was made with Dean Schaefer at Vintage Bronco who supplied about 40 names and addresses which resulted in a mailing going out to the original responders and to the people on his list. This letter announced the first meeting to be held at Jerry’s Restaurant at 24th St. and Thomas Rd on July 21, 1991. This first meeting resulted in about 12 families getting together for the first gathering of Arizona Classic Bronco. At this time we decided to get together and drive up to Prescott for their annual Old Engine Fireup and swap meet which was to be held on August 4th.
We met in the parking lot of Metro Center and drove up to Cordes Junction where we decided to stop for coffee. On the way back to our vehicles Sheri Patrick stopped me and offered to “help” us with putting together a newsletter. Glory Hallelujah! What a godsend that was. She proceeded to put together a rough draft that, with some refinments, was to become The Bronco Roundup. Sheri remained our newsletter editor until February 1994. In March 1994 the newsletter was put together by an assortment of Board Members and volunteers. The next month Rem Hawes took over as editor and has continued the tradition of producing an excellent newsletter.
From this point (back to 1991) things started to move at a very fast pace. An unofficial organizational committee was formed consisting of the following: Bert Dickensori, Jerry & Barbara Glass, Jim Holoubek and his soon to become wife Brenda Lee, Hector & Linda Martinez, Jim Taylor, Marj Turley and myself At these committee meetings the by-laws and other policies were hashed out to bring some order to a growing club. By our third monthly meeting at Jerry’s, it was a standing room only situation and we had to abandon the restaurant in favor of our current policy of holding the meetings in conjunction with an outing.
November of ‘91 we awarded the first beloved and much sought after Cow Patty award. To put the blame where it belongs, this was a suggestion or should I say strong proposal of Sheri Patrick. For those of you not familiar with this prestigious award, let me fill you in. This award is given to the owner of the Bronco that has the most trouble on the current month run. He/she must then keep the Cow Patty until it can be passed on to the next month’s winner or as soon as we have one. If you have not seen the beauty, just ask, I’m sure someone will produce it. By the way, the person responsible for its design and creation was Marj Turley.
Some time in the fall of 1991 a suggestion was made for the December outing that we head up north for some fun in the snow and our annual Christmas Tree Run was born. We took ten Broncos, a Mercury and four guests back into the woods and were successful in clearing out the trees.
About the beginning of the next year, 1992, some thoughts about an anniversary or birthday type of meeting started to emerge. Guess what? The Stampede came about over the next few months and has continued each year on the third weekend of July. The first Stampede was held, believe it or not, at a place called Mud Lake. This small lake which is not much more than a watering hole is east of Flagstaff and was chosen for the pines, coolness and remoteness. Though not perfect, it was still a ball to be able to get all of our members together. The Stampede has proven to be very popular and we hope it will always continue. The Club has been very fortunate to be associated with companies that will donate gifts to our Stampede for the raffles. There have been major companies such as Ramsey Winch, Discount Tire, Warn Industries, K-C Lites, and many others over the years. We have tried to affiliate ourselves with some major Ford dealerships, without success, for the purpose of being able to get involved in car shows. Perhaps this will come about someday.
In April 1992 the Club participated in the annual Peoria Heritage Days Parade. Peoria has a sister city in Germany and also one in Mexico. Representatives from the two countries were to ride in the parade but because of rain and the fact that the club who was responsible for their rides had only convertibles, we were asked to help out which we did gladly. In 1993 we also participated but not with as many Broncos. The Club has also been featured in some of the national four wheel magazines.
We had a two page spread in the November 1992 issue of Petersen’s 4 Wheel and Off Road Magazine and some articles in Four Wheel Magazine. Through our appearance in national and internationally read publications, we were able to become acquainted with Per Eric Adolfson who is our member from Norway. He has been very loyal in continuing with his membership even though he doesn’t get to the United States very often. We also have members in Tucson and Bullhead City.
There are many people that have been responsible for the success that Arizona Classic Bronco has experienced, that are not listed here, and I hope that they will forgive me for not including them. Their number is just too great for me to bring them to mind. There are many funny stories about our trips that are included in our newsletters and perhaps I will be able to publish them at a later time.
Hope you enjoy this and perhaps find things you were not aware of.