9UNP1389HD_Lisa_Theo_WordPress

- Welcome again to the Community Lecture series of the College of Letters and Science. Tonight's speaker is Lisa Theo. Lisa is a Geography instructor and the Coordinator of Undergraduate Research at the University of Wisconsin- Stevens Point. She and her husband, Cristos, have been married for 30 years and they have three adult sons. While the children were young she returned to school earning her Bachelor's of Science in Geography at UW-Eau Claire

and her Masters of Science in Geography at UW-Madison. She was the first person in her family to earn a college degree. That makes you a first-generation college student. Lisa has held a number of public service positions and started two home businesses during her more than 35 years in the workforce. She's managed women's clothing stores, served as a legislative aide to a State Senator, worked in food service, run a home-child care business and had a home business designing and constructing original wedding gowns and bridal accessories. 

She's taught at the university since 1999, first at UW-Madison as a graduate student and then at UW-Eau Claire, before joining the Geography and Geology appointment department here at UWSP in 2007. Which was two years before I got here and I can thank Lisa personally because she was on the search committee for my Dean's selection. During her teaching career Lisa served as a task member of the Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton's Wisconsin Women Equal Opportunity Initiative where she was responsible for spatial analysis and cartography. She also served as Eau Claire's representative to the Wisconsin Economic Summit from 2001 to 2003, coordinating a session on university and community partnerships for economic development in 2003. Lisa's research as a university instructor concentrates on community change in Wisconsin's Northwoods and conflicts at the urban-rural fringe. I'd like to welcome Lisa Theo and Creation of Community at Tomahawk's Harley-Davidson Fall Ride. Lisa? 
(audience applause)
- Thanks all, I appreciate that warm welcome and thank you Chris. I have been going to the Fall Ride since I can remember as a young child visiting up there. 

We didn't go to all the events at the Fall Ride because a lot of them are more adult in nature. But my favorite one is, the part of the weekend is the Thunder Parade, which those of you that were here early, you saw some of that in the video that we were showing earlier.

Some years, if the weather's bad it could be maybe a hundred bikes. If the weather's good and warm, thousands of bikes that take off from the Tomahawk Schools complex and go on about a 17 to 18 mile trek near Tomahawk and end up in downtown Tomahawk lining up their bikes up and down the street. And it's loud and wonderful and crazy and just a lot of fun. And if there's one thing you can do to enjoy the Fall Ride I'd say that's the one thing you need to do is go see that Thunder Parade sometime in your life. So my nickname for this talk is Brigadoon on Wheels. For those of you that are not familiar with Brigadoon, Brigadoon is that mythical village in Scotland that appears once every hundred years for a day and then disappears

to be brought back in a hundred years. And okay, maybe it isn't a hundred years difference, but what I'm going to be talking about is how Tomahawk during this week or weekend, long weekend of the Fall Ride, creates this brand new community almost overnight. 

And at the end of the weekend it dissipates to come back the next year. It's beautiful, I urge you all to try it.

Well this is, there we go. Now to orient yourself Tomahawk, in case you're not familiar with it is about 70 miles north of here on Highway 51.

Right here okay, so we're right down there. It's about, well here's Tomahawk the city here. And over, about 20 miles to the east would be Rhinelander. About 70 miles to the west is Ladysmith. Many people know about Minocqua because of the tourist community up there, that's up this way about 20 some, 25 miles from Tomahawk. Just so you can orient, it's a Geography professor thing. 

You have to have some maps, alright. There's a long, long history of Tomahawk and Harley-Davidson working together, creating community in this wonderful city of Tomahawk in our Northwoods. Harley-Davidson is the community's second largest employer.

They have been in Tomahawk since 1963 when--

I'm gonna read it so I make sure I get the data right on this one. The local lore is that Willie Davidson who was the grandson of the founder, was a regular visitor to the region. And in February of '62

Harley-Davidson purchased a controlling interest in the Tomahawk boat manufacturing company, which was making fiberglass boats. And the connection to the Harleys with the fiberglass was just perfect. So they bought a controlling interest. 

Within a year, the Tomahawk boat company was no longer making boats, everything was Harley-Davidson. In the early 2000's Tomahawk had three different Harley-Davidson plants within the city, the city area. Many, many people employed there.

As a community partner Harley has done some wonderful, wonderful things for the community. According to an August 22, 2010 article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, quote "Harley-Davidson and it's employees have made Tomahawk a better place to live. Through donations and fund raisers they have done things such as replace the floor in a school gymnasium, build walking trails, assist the public library and renovate community center bathrooms. The plants have hosted high school and college students in work cooperative programs. They have been a place where you can graduate from high school and have a career that lasts a lifetime," unquote.

The article continues quoting Mike Messinger, owner of Lincoln County Cycles, a Tomahawk motorcycle shop. Harley-Davidson quote "Is hugely important. 

Our largest employer in the city is the paper mill, but you don't see people with paper mill tattoos on their arms," 
(audience laughs)
 unquote.

So, sense of community. What does that mean?

It's really a long-studied concept that we see in social psychology, anthropology, urban planning, public administration and many other disciplines. They are varying but always fairly similar definitions of what this means. And most of them focus on the idea of membership, the idea that you belong. It's a place that there's in and out. You are either in the group or you are not.

There can be a real sense of,

let's say emotional safety in knowing that you're part of that group, strength in numbers, perhaps. And maybe there's a common symbol that helps you connect to this idea of membership, Harley-Davidson logo, perhaps or the Harley Owner Groups, HOGS. Whatever logos they have for their individual groups. Even just the leather alone could be one of those symbols when we're thinking about Harley-Davidson. An integration in fulfillment of needs. There's a reward for being part of this community. Whether it's the emotional feedback, that sense of community or the reward of, knowing you belong. You know that you're part of something bigger than you are. Shared emotional connection also that collective history that we know we're part of this culture and this is an important culture. 

McMillan and Chavis in 1986 defined sense of community as quote, "A feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that member's needs will be met through their commitment to be together," unquote. So we're going to look at this sense of community in Tomahawk during this Harley-Davidson Fall Ride and how this has kind of changed over time. Initially it started out with 21 bikers just going to see the leaves, okay. They had it as a little fund raiser, each person put in a little bit of money and they donated to a local charity. 21, in early October, great time to be up North to see the leaves, some years. 
(audience laughs)
 Some years it could be snow, like we know. Some years it could be 85 degrees, right? They found over the next couple years that it's probably a better idea to move it up a little bit. In 1983 the next year they had 160 people participate, word had spread. 

1983 is when the idea of the Harley Owners Groups started coming into being, too. So it's the first time you hear that HOG acronym for the groups.

They decided to focus on donating the money that they raised in the registration fees, to the Muscular Dystrophy Association and it has been that way ever since that every fund raising event for it is going to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. A big $350 that year.

I'm skipping some years in between here just to get to the key ones. Again for the weather they fell into a couple years where the attendance wasn't great because of the weather. Moved it up to September in hopes that that would help. But we also know that September in the Northwoods can be almost as iffy as October, so there's good and bad years with that, as well. 1986, 1200 people and raised $3200 for MDA, and they're off for the most part.

1989, 5,000 people, $10,000 to MDA.

In 1990, Bob Troutman,

his nickname is Bubba decided, "You know this is getting big enough, the city of Tomahawk can't really hold all of this downtown. It's a community of less than 35 hundred people. And there's enough of this fun to go around." So he rents out the Tomahawk Speedway and holds concerts and free camping

to people that will pay the concert entrance fee. And to orient yourself here, this is Tomahawk. This main street area where the party would be, would be down here in Sara Park, which is right on Lake Mohawksin here on the Wisconsin River. Tomahawk Speedway is up a few miles north of town. That was nice for some of the locals who didn't care for all the noise, ya know. 

That was kinda outside the city limits for awhile. It got to be a big, big event out there, big acts coming in, big major rock and roll.

Look I show my age here, rock and roll acts coming in for that and it became quite successful to come out there. And people would go to both places. They'd go downtown or they'd also go out to the Tomahawk Speedway.

So coinciding in 1990 with Bubba having this second venue out on the north side is the first time they decided to have a raffle. And now by this time Harley-Davidson is cooperating with the festival. They're working together to do this fundraising for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and they're donating a brand new Harley-Davidson. The next year the revenues just sky rocket because of that raffle.

In 1991 the very first Thunder Parade, like I said they didn't call it Thunder Parade at the time I believe they called it the Light Brigade Parade. 

They shut down all the lights on Main Street, so as the bikes came down Main Street it was just the lights of the bikes which was quite neat. They raised $20,000 for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The Zor Shrine Temple Precision Motorcycle Team came up to lead the parade. And they're doing outreach to the community. This isn't just for the bikers that are coming in for the party.

The local nursing homes had visits from the Zor Shriners. They gave free T-shirts to nursing home residents to kind of rally the troops in the whole community around this idea of the Fall Ride.

I'd like to share something here with you from the Tomahawk Leader newspaper

dated September 20th, 1994.

"Some riders traveled as far away as Pennsylvania and even Alaska to spend the weekend in Tomahawk. 

Augie and Sherry Minsloff, members of the Anchorage, Alaska chapter of the Harley Owners Group made their first pilgrimage to Colorama this year." That was the nickname they had for the event. "They said it certainly won't be their last either." Quote, 'We've been hearing about it for so long, said Augie, we had to come down and do it. We'll definitely be coming back.' After shipping their two Harley-Davidsons from Anchorage to Seattle, the Minsloffs rejoined their bikes and rode the 25 hundred miles from Seattle to Tomahawk. They were accompanied at Colorama by Augie's brother, Jarn and his wife Judy who live in Wisconsin. Jarn worked for Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee for 25 years and has been attending Colorama for the last nine years. It was he who finally persuaded his brother to make the journey to Tomahawk. Quote, 'In the nine years I've been coming up here, it keeps getting better and better,' said Jarn, 'The camaraderie in everything is just great.' Jarn also credits the hospitality of the Tomahawk community for making bikers feel welcome in town every year. Jarn and Judy Minsloff, like most Colorama regulars had the weekend's accommodations booked at least a year in advance. 

In fact they have a standing reservation at the Pine Cone Resort."

And that's something that, you know, that's in the early '90s that continues to this day. There are people that have been staying at the same places for over 20 years. Because in a community of only 3,400 or 3,500 people, there aren't a lot of hotel spaces. There are resorts on some of the lakes, but if you not bringing up a camper or tent, you might be going as far away as 90 miles to find a hotel to be able to accommodate the growing throngs that are coming for this now.

By 1995, because of those throngs of people the Chamber of Commerce is asking community members if they'll open up their homes. 'Cause so many people are coming up and there just isn't enough space for everybody. There are people that I've talked to that didn't want their names on here that weren't all that thrilled with the noise and the hassle and the hubbub of the week. But they've started renting out their homes and the money they make over the course of that week pays for their vacation somewhere very nice for that week. And everybody goes away happy.

The Chamber of Commerce has mentioned that that's been quite successful. So that's kind of neat. So in 1995, 13,000 people,

$80,000 to MDA. You can see how that raffling of the motorcycle has really increased the amount of money that they give to MDA. 1997, this is kind of stagnating at about 30,000 people, okay? And right around $100,000 for MDA. This is the year after the Packers won the Super Bowl, so they had a specially designed Green Bay Packer Harley-Davidson that Harley aficionado Mike Holmgren signed

and that was what the raffle drawing was for that year. So that really amp-ed up the fund raising that year. 

This is also the first year of the Street Dance. Now the Street Dance, oops I thought I had the map there for that, that must be coming up next. The Street Dance is...

where they block off four blocks on what they nicknamed Main Street, it's really Wisconsin Avenue. And it's closed to only motorcycle traffic and then even no motorcycle traffic in the evenings. And they have bands at either end of the street, okay. And it's just nothing but closed off party for the whole evening, both evenings of the weekend. Quite successful that first year and it still continues to this day. In 1998, they have more non-bike activities added. And this is for the locals. 

Because for the most part those that are coming in on a bike are not bringing their families. You know, it's one or two people on a bike so if we're having family activities it's for the locals. So they're doing a lot of things to make sure the community feels connected to what is going on with the Fall Ride.

Share again from the Tomahawk Leader an article, September 15, 1998 by the columnist Mark Gerke.

"Okay Harley riders I'm on to you. You may fool some of the people some of the time, but I know what you're up to with your Born to Raise Hell jackets, your bandannas and your women wearing those skin tight leather accessories. Every year you come roaring into our little town looking for all the world like Hell's Angels. But I know who you really are. You're teachers, your accountants, your business people, good people. And your having fun because for just a few days every September, you're free. 

For those few days the traffic will be tighter here and some of the locals might grumble a bit; however, the more enlightened among us will remember that you're here for a good cause. Of course you're also here do some serious riding in our beautiful Northwoods. You might even tour the local plants and see how we've grown. We're mighty proud of our Harley-Davidson plants here in Tomahawk. You'll probably spend some time checking out each other's bikes and make note of the latest looks and features. Above all, you'll probably hope for warm days and nights. Although in September in Northern Wisconsin you just never know.

Harley riders I hope you have a great weekend. Please be careful out there and thank you for the great work you do in raising money to fight Muscular Dystrophy. You're good people doing good work for others and having fun all the while. 

I told you I was on to you." So the community really understands that this is a positive thing for everyone involved. Another short article from the Tomahawk Leader, Tuesday, September 12th in 2000. "The Tomahawk Fall Ride brings in motorcycle enthusiasts from all over the United States and even some from other countries, as well. The vast majority of those who come here for the event seem to make it a yearly ritual. Although the answer may seem obvious, we here at the Tomahawk Leader are curious to hear from riders who make lengthy treks to be part of the Fall Ride in Tomahawk. We put out a call via our Internet web page seeking comments on the Fall Ride from those who come from further away. We received a response from Patty and Bruce Blum of Minnesota, which pretty much summed up what we had suspected was the draw of the Tomahawk area. The Blums wrote, quote 'The reason we continue to make Tomahawk a yearly event is the small town atmosphere we feel while visiting there. Everyone has always been so nice and there are such great rides to take in. 

We camp at the Outpost Campground on Lake Nokomis and meet up with some folks from the Green Bay area. From the poker runs to the parade it is all well planned. The Street Dance is great fun as well as the raffles. Hoping for great weather again and continued good times in the Tomahawk area,' unquote. We join the Blums in congratulating and saluting those who efforts have made the Tomahawk Fall Ride such a tremendous success. Any interesting ploy can get people to come once, but to keep them coming back year after year takes a solid well-run event and the support of an entire community. Tomahawk has both."

So in 2001, the Thunder Parade dedicates

the new Highway 51 bypass. Now for anyone here that might remember when the bypasses went through Stevens Point, not through, around Stevens Point and around Merrill around Mosinee,

it was a big deal for the local businesses. I remember as a child growing up in Tomahawk and when we wanted to head north to visit all the family in Tomahawk, from Fond du Lac. Did I say that right that I was in Fond du Lac? I lost track, no? I grew up in Fond du Lac we'd go up north to Tomahawk. My father was from there and that's kind of where I feel is home to me. But when we'd be going up, you know we'd be stopping at Stevens Point, 'cause that's about half way. Big King or Big Chef, is that right?

- 
[Audience Member]

 Burger Chef.

- Burger Chef! But the Big Chef was kind of like the McDonald's, ohhh. We got that once a year, that's it, right? You know, and boy, was that a treat. And we'd always stop there, always stopped there because it was about the half way point. But you know traveling before the Highway 51 bypass you were going through all the small towns. So our next stop after Stevens Point was going through Lake DuBay, you know. And then up through Mosinee and skirting passed Wausau a little bit. You went downtown a little bit yeah, but then you saw all these communities and if you stopped to eat in the community.

When these bypasses went in a lot of communities

lost their small businesses.

It's quite a shame so when this happened with the bypass was completed in Tomahawk, it was tough for them, too. Now some businesses thrive during things like this usually. It's the hotels and the gas stations and the things, fast food places that tend to be near highways in their changes. The local communities can really suffer. So this was a challenge. It was a challenge to Tomahawk a challenge to many communities is, "How do we continue to get people to come inside when a bypass is built."

The Thunder Parade, they were the very first people to drive on the bypass. Now they had hoped to have it done in time for the kick off of the Fall Ride that year. 

It was actually delayed but it was finished enough that they could ride it. They had to do some painting and marking and things like that and putting up some signs. But they kind of inaugurated the bypass that year.

One more here to share from the Tomahawk Leader, September 24th, 2002.

This is a list of just some testimonials. The event had just finished up like a week and a half or two weeks earlier. "I just wanted to say how impressed my wife and I were with this year's Fall Ride. This was our first time attending an event like this and we will be back. We were told of this about two weeks before the Ride weekend by some friends we have just met in our area, and asked us to come along with them. They have been coming up there for a few years now. 

I can't tell you enough how much fun we had. With an event of that size, you would expect trouble. But we didn't see any really. Even with all the drinking that was going on everyone seemed to be under control. Again we would like to thank the people of Tomahawk for their fine hospitality and we will see you again next year." That's Ron and Sandy Schmitt from Mayville, Wisconsin. "Hi, on my way out of Sara Park I saw a sign that said, 'See pictures of yourself. Tomahawk Leader dot com.' So after I got home I'd thought I'd check. You have a great website for a small paper, I was very impressed. I'd like to say that the parade was great. 

Nice and long to minimize the bunching up, yet short enough to keep everyone together. And having people come out everywhere along the route was great." Brian Schonberg from Eagan, Minnesota. People love the welcoming atmosphere at the Tomahawk Fall Ride. And it really is something special. 2003 was the Harley-Davidson 100th Anniversary and people were concerned in Tomahawk that perhaps all the riders were gonna just wait and go down to Milwaukee. And they weren't gonna see the crowds up in Tomahawk. They were prepared for it but they weren't really anticipating a big event. But it ended up just as big as previous years, 30,000 attendees, raised almost $120,000 for MDA.

This is the first year that the Tomahawk Lions Club sponsors rides for visually impaired people.

So the front of the parade is Harley riders that are offering people a free ride if they have visual impairments. And they've continued it to this day. It's a wonderful, wonderful way to reach out again to the locals and make that connection.

County decided to add some turning lanes

at Highway A which is the highway near Bubba's big party, where's he's having this alternate thing outside of the downtown area.

Which was good, because of this growing number of attendees you can imagine on the little county highways how easily we can have accidents and challenges at least with that. Bubba did help pay for some of that. I think it was 10 or 15 thousand dollars that he helped to pay for a turning lane and a slow traffic lane near the Tomahawk Speedway.

Then 2005, the city adds a Postal Cancellation.

That not only shows the local pride in this event but now we're talking about global outreach. 

Because wherever that mail is going you're seeing this Harley Fall Ride event. It's now the 24th Annual Fall Ride and 15 years of Bubba having this other party. So this has become a huge event and people are coming from all over the world. It's gotten so big, well a part of is the Tomahawk Speedway changed owners. This seemed to be an opportunity for Bubba to look for a bigger location and something he'd have more control over as far as the money and the income and what he could do with it. And he found a large plot of land north of Lake Nokomis where there's over two thou-- or 200 acres that he could use for the party and for camping and I've got some photos coming up to show you there. And darn good thing he moved up there that year to have additional room, 45,000 attendees

in a community of just under, at this time, 33 hundred people. So it's huge the impact that's happening here. So Bubba is now about 10 miles from downtown.

This is County A here and then this is County L. And so there's a nice plot of land up there just north of Tomahawk. So 2013 the Thunder Parade now offers rides also to anybody over the age of 65. So maybe, I don't think they're asking for IDs. So if your close, I'm sure you could go and get a ride on the Harley for the parade. And anyone under 18 that has a disability. So along with those that are visually impaired they're expanding again to the local community and reaching out. Now I mentioned about Brigadoon on Wheels is a miraculous community that rises

infrequently and then goes away for a long time. And that's what we're gonna look at here. 

So we're gonna start with the Thunder Parade and the activities in town with Sara Park and the Street Party. And I've got a lot of photographs. As we look at this I'd like to you-- well, first I'll show the map here to show you this is right downtown. This is the Sara Park area. The Street Dance occurs right here between this Railway Street

and Fourth Street here on Wisconsin Avenue. Which is so this whole block is kind of representing the whole Street Dance and Party downtown.

They'll be a band right here a band down on this end. Often times the Rodeo also has a band on their deck. I mean there's music everywhere. 

On top of all of this and on top of Bubba's event north of town, almost all of the local bars have live bands, as well. I mean there's that many people that, they can serve us all of them by having bands at every venue just about. Lots and lots of music and lots of things to do during this event.

So what we're gonna look at is, the things again that connect to community here. The idea of making sure that non-profits in your community can benefit from something like this. We're gonna look at the portable toilets. I know it doesn't sound too exciting, but let's think about the infrastructure needs of something like this. And what is it that communities create or provide for one another? It's like having the water and sewage department in a city, we gotta think about that for a weekend event. Trash collection, as well. 

We've got our trash collection in town that we count on every week. How do you take care of something like that for a weekend venue? What are the local businesses doing? Many of the local businesses offer discounts to Harley riders or Harley attendees. And they'll, maybe 10% off and then they'll donate that 10% back to the Muscular Dystrophy Association. So it helps with the fund raising events. Lots of non-local vendors, as well. And that's been a little bit of a point of disagreement in some previous years because local vendors will come in and set up their shop and make a lot of money, but then maybe not help for some of the...

security, maybe police protection, things like that. So they've worked out some agreements over the years for kind of, not really a tax, but a fee to help with those kind of things. 

Oop, I did I put Non-Profit fund raisers, those are all duplicated aren't they? That's what I do for doing that too quickly today, I apologize. We'll see the pictures and it'll go through fast. Alright here, this I'll go just quickly. But look at the variety of ages of people attending this.

This is a State Patrol leading the parade after the truck went through. And also the different types of bikes and the characters perhaps,

costumes on some.

One thing that's you'll see that is common in nearly every single photograph is smiles. And along the 17 mile long ride or so, everybody's waving and the whole community is lined up. 

And people have tailgate parties in their driveways to...

to welcome all of these riders to Tomahawk.

The place where my family watches is just about a mile away from the high school where they take off from on King Road and it's right where the speed limit changes

and increases, so their all gunning it right there in that drive! It's so awesome. 
(Lisa and audience laughs)
 It is so much fun!

Yeah, that's a coffin, yeah.

That thing we see is the idea of traffic signs

that are added everywhere. 

When you have 40,000 or 45,000 motorcycles

it is dangerous. There have been deaths over the years, very serious accidents. They try to do what they can to minimize that.

Most of the locals know, but you know it's still hard to see them, it's still hard. People do their best. But these temporary signs do help to get people slowed down in advance of some of these things. The last couple years they've started putting up temporary reduced speed areas,

lowering the speed limits on certain-- but they haven't been able to do it on US highways, but certainly the county highways they've been able to lower the speed limits. And that's been very helpful. 

No parking. Where do we restrict vehicle movement here and only allow motorcycles in order to make this a more welcoming place for them and make it safer, as well. So we have a lot of detours around the downtown venue.

And the community and the bikers all cooperate with this pretty well. This is actually the parking lot of the Nelson's grocery store. And the Nelson's is right back here, there's the Ben Franklin. And you can see they have some of the employees helping to direct traffic to get the bikes in one area and cars are going in another. Just again for safety and just a great day, too having fun. This is again I told you earlier that I took these pictures for those that were here earlier, very early in the morning because of the crowds. It is crowded, it's crowded down there. 

And so a lot of these you're not gonna see all the bikes that you could if you were up there yourself. But you can see this one, this venue, the owners came from Bradley, West Virginia. So this is a big money maker for people not only locally, but a lot of people that travel to these different rides and can make quite a nice living.

A lot of the non-profits in town put up food stands and again you can see there's no people around it because I did go very early in the morning, so you could see the signs. Otherwise it'd been so crowded you wouldn't have been able to see them. The fire department. I don't know what class, it's just a class fund raiser, I don't know. Swim Club, you can see the kids just sitting around while mom and dad are getting ready.

And lots of Porta Pottys, lots and lots of those. That's the west end of Wisconsin Avenue where one of the-- That's the stage inside that trailer

there for the band later in the evening. And the employment agency

hoping that they're gonna find some people that are coming up on Harleys that want to learn how to be mi-- be a motorcycle manufacturing technician.

Lot, lots of opportunities for that in Tomahawk. More venues.

Lots of orange. And again this is like 11 in the morning here on this shot. You can already see how many motorcycles are there. And what will eventually happen is there will be no vehicles. No, no four-wheeled vehicles. 

And there'll be another line, two rows of bicycles down the, er, motorcycles down the middle of the street, as well. Everybody else left to park somewhere else. Every business has Welcome Bikers signs. That's really nice and very welcoming. In this bottom thing here, just showing the official sponsors. The top couple rows are all those that are right in that downtown area. But the bottom two rows there, Happy Snapper, and that's a typo there, it's Twin Bay Resort, and Cockatiels, those are all outside of the city. So their hoping to make sure to get some of the people coming, as they're going out on one of their rides. And what, another one this is a trash barrel. Cockatiels bar is trying to at least get some image in the riders' head that there's another place to go and they're gonna see that because it's helping with crowd control, as well and keeping things clean. 

So Bubba's Big Party up on the north side of Lake Nokomis, little bit different. So again up here about 10 miles from the downtown proper.

And we see again the idea of traffic signs that we're gonna have to put in and traffic management. But because this is private property he's gonna have to hire his own security forces up there

to handle with crowd control and stuff as well. Portable toilets again are gonna be an issue as far as creating community. The trash collection, he has his own stores. You gotta think about potable water and shower facilities.

And there's still the non-profit fund raising. This is an aerial shot, the next four I believe are from MF Helicopters.

They're out of East Troy, Wisconsin and they were so generous to let me use these shots for this. I saw them at the event and I have horrible motion sickness so I knew I-- Even if I wanted to pay for it I would not be able to take the photographs to do it. And I chatted with them and they said, "Oh, I'll just get you some photographs." Thank you so much, that was so nice.

This is facing North you can see the North arrow up there for our geographers, okay. This is the campground area, okay. This is the tent where they have the bands in the evening. This is where we have the Barstool Races.

Yeah, yeah, I'll show ya. We've got some pictures coming up. 

And some of the vendors here and such. And I've got some other pictures here, there. And this is just from the East and a little bit up to the North from there. But what I want you to look at is this grid layout, right? Normally this is just a field. It used to be alfalfa pretty regularly.

Nice grid layout, so we have streets, intersections.

We see here where they have their campers kind of in a circle. I'm gonna get you another one coming up. There's one, right here.

You've heard of gated communities?

It's certainly giving us the impression that some are allowed in and some are not, right? And it might just be for fun. You know, just hey let's just do it, we can have our own little party in the sun. Let's call it a neighborhood instead of the gated community. Let's do it that way, right? But you can see quite a few of them in here. And actually there's one over here, where they actually have their HOG group, their Harley Owners Group, their special name on a big flag.

So all of the people that came from that particular Harley Owners Group, all camped together in their own community, as well. Their own neighborhood inside this larger community. 

Here's another example of that here, as well. And fund raisers again, too. This is for a boy's group home in Prentice. Prentice is just about, not quite, about a half a mile, or half an hour, I'm sorry, west of Tomahawk.

Girl Scouts and recycling aluminum. The Nokomis Fire Department is actually on this land area on the south side of the land there. And they saw this as a tremendous opportunity for fund raising. They also have a church service there on Sunday morning. One thing that they also have and that's advertised in the booklet every year that announces the events is AA meetings and Al Anon meetings,

all over the city during this week. 

It's interesting about this raffle that you would think it says Harley-Davidson raffle and I thought, "Oh, I didn't realize that they were selling tickets for it up here, as well. I thought it was just down at the sanctioned event in town." I mean you look at it and it says 10th Annual. So you look a little closer and it actually says Marytown and St. Cloud. For those of you that not familiar with those we'll do the Wisconsin hand thing you know where-- Lake Winnebago's right here. St. Cloud is kind of in between

Fond du Lac and Sheboygan between

Lake Winnebago and Lake Michigan over there. 

So they're actually selling raffle tickets to benefit their area.

Which is good, if it's a fund raiser, why not right? But that's interesting there. And they're giving away a Harley, so people are buying tickets.

And it's the people watching and they're looking at these beautiful motorcycles. It would keep you busy all day.

Okay, so now Trash Collection. Regularly the pick up truck with a couple of guys on the back goes through and picks up the trash through the neighborhood, okay.

You can see the sign here that says Fourth Street. They're all labeled so you can find your way home the next day. 

Maybe that's a fenced yard, I don't know, kind of telling people to stay out. I also took the picture because of the Packers tent. This is the Intersection of 8th and Main.

The sign's a little bent on the 8th thing.

There's 7th and Main.

See down here that is a sign for one of those gated communities or neighborhoods that was one of the Harley Owners Group's signs, it was their name. And I didn't get up close enough to that one. But they provide water for the campers there, too.

The trailer for showers. Right over here you toss in some money and get tokens and then you can go in and get enough water, you know, certain amount of time for each token, so you can shower. 

So we've taken care of the infrastructure of water supply.

A number of these are set up throughout the campgrounds. There's also trucks going around with firewood as well, quite regularly. I think one thing to really point out here is the ATM. 
(audience laughs)
 And I do remember seeing in one of the annual pamphlets, brochures for the event when Bubba first moved up to the north side of the Lake Nokomis, one of the real promotional things he said is that he had Internet access, as well for people. Harley owners have a lot of money. Those motorcycles are expensive. And you saw how many have campers. You know this is not a cheap thing to do. 

So him offering Internet access is pretty smart 'cause I'm going to guess a lot of the folks probably still have business they need to take care of while they're off on the Ride. And having access to the Internet is really helpful.

Here's our Bar Stool Races. You can see the, well there's the stool itself. There's the legs, okay.

There's a few more. It's pretty crazy. It's fun, they go on a small,

kind of modified oval. And there's some tipping over involved occasionally. 

But it's fun, it's a lot of fun. They take it quite seriously. This is a big deal other than the fun, other than the building of community. In 2003, the riders themselves

spent 12 million dollars up there. And then the multiplier effect to the region added up to 84 million by 2014. We're looking at 22.5 million dollars of direct spending from the riders alone... in the region. And we talk region, we're talking all the way down to us. Say within a 90 mile radius. 

We see a benefit from that of almost 190 million dollars. So from something that started out with 21 riders

back in 1982, this thing has become quite special and a heck of a fund raiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. And that's a reminder quite often to people as they're around celebrating and having fun, you see these pretty regularly, "Free Admission, but please, please donate to MD" After all, this is what it's all about. So it's a wonderful, wonderful event.

I hope you all can spend some time up there sometime in the future. And I wanna thank you for listening. 
(audience applause)