Banquet, Raffle, and Awards Dinner - Saturday, June 21, 2008

The organizing committee for Hodaka Days 2008 -- having experienced some wet, wild, windy, or just plain chill evenings in other years at the park pavillion -- tried something new this year by renting the Sacred Heart Hall and having the Saturday evening dinner and doings inside. Rhonda's Family Restaurant of Milton-Freewater catered the affair serving up BBQ chicken, baked beans, potato salad, coleslaw, roasted potatoes, and peach cobbler for $9 a ticket.

It was a tight fit, but 120 folks (give or take a few) had a darned good feed. About 30 more folks wandered in after dinner to participate in the auction, raffle, and awards presentations. (See Winner Lists for Bike Show and Observed Trials). It was standing room only, even with the addition of every bench and chair that could be hustled from the Swansons place across the street!

The Henry Koepke Award

The Hodaka Club instituted a new award this year, the Henry Koepke award for outstanding technical achievement. Gregg Floren, Bob Whitman, and Thal Anderson designed and created the award, which will be inscribed each year with the winner's name and housed in the Local History room at the new Athena library.

Henry's son, Kurt Koepke, spoke of his childhood memories of his dad and the way that the sound and smell of 2-stroke engines always brings that era back. He then presented the 2008 award to Greg Watkins of California Hodaka.

Auctioneer and emcee Bob Whitman kept a fast pace with raffle drawings, assisted by Gregg Floren and by prize runners Sam Kirchberger, Kaylie McKiernan, and Kolby McAdams. Carol Anderson and Jan Floren stirred those blue tickets (for donated items including caps, shirts, tools, books, helmets, boots, jackets, and more) in a huge roasting pan until their fingers were exhausted. Still, certain names were called out with such regularity that it was clear some folks had bought tickets in a serious way. Ron Liddle ended the evening with quite a pile, as did Jim Allen (winning back some of items Allen's Cycle had donated). And young Mary Kirchberger was clearly in favor with Lady Luck!

In amongst the raffled items, Bob occasionally put a special item up on the auction block, including rare bike parts and services like Roger Lippiatt's engine rebuild. He's got the auctioneer's touch; auction items alone brought in $1800 to benefit Local History Hodaka archives at the new Athena Public Library. Dave Richmond, treasurer of the Athena Library Friends Association (ALFA), was present to happily take folks' money!

With the raffle tickets (for donated items and the Ace 100) sold in advance via Strictly Hodaka, and the on-site raffle ticket sales Friday and Saturday, proceeds for the joint ALFA-Hodaka fundraiser topped $5400 -- the exact tally awaits some bookkeeping of VISA fees.

Midway through the raffles, Thal Anderson took the floor. Mike in hand, he referred to Paul Stannard's long-time vision for a "Home of Hodaka" sign on Highway 11 at the Athena intersection. He then issued a challenge -- that if $500 toward a sign couldn't be raised here and now, that Paul Stannard would wear right through Sunday the dress that Carol Anderson was sliding over his head!

Paul acquiesced with shock and awe, accepted the challenge, and made his move through the crowd with a box for donations. Wallets opened, fistfuls of bills flew, and within a half hour Paul announced that about $1200 had been contributed. The highway sign is on its way to reality!

Photo Credit: Stu Osborn

And whose ticket won the Ace 100?

The jug of tickets was shaken and shaken. Kaylie McKiernan drew out the tiny ticket and handed it to Bob Whitman. Bob's face showed his startled amazement, as he called out the name Earl Burrows! As you might recall, Earl, of San Diego, also won the Dirt Squirt 80 in the Hodaka Days 2005 raffle.

Earl's winning mantra? "Buy early, buy often." With his brother Steve at his side, and holding his faithful friend Pearl, Earl had bought several tickets at the park and then two more at the last minute at Saturday evening's dinner just SECONDS before sales were cut off.

The beautiful Ace 100 was a full throttle team effort. The frame and most of the attached parts have been powder coated and it rides on new tires, tubes & shocks -- all courtesy of Danny Messmore of Minot, North Dakota. The tank is a newly rechromed one from the Watkins at California Hodaka. A host of parts including fork seals and boots, air cleaner boots, and cables were contributed by Paul Stannard of Strictly Hodaka. Al Bumgarner of ProCycle also came through with some hard-to-find items. Ron Liddle completely rebuilt the motor and met Danny in Spokane to install it. [Photo Credit: Stu Osborn.]