Come For The Trails, Stay For The Stories!

History

On 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 six people. On the 27th, a similar ad was placed with an even 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 placing ads.

I made contact 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 Fire-Up 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 refinements, 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.

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.

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 Wheeler magazine. Through our appearance in national and internationally read publications, we became 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.