On this day...

[rob w]

Do you know what happened on this day. March 30, 1998 ?

[BrianTaylor]

I will take a stab at ....the POG was formed ..BT

Brian Taylor

[tanz]

Was John Penton inducted into the Motorcycle Hall Of Fame?

10 Beta 520 RR
77 GS6 400
73 Hare Scrambler 250
72 Six Days 125-Sold
71 Cat 350X

[3putt]

BT was very close.  POG becomes chartered as a Non-Profit organization from State of Ohio, and also receives charter from AMA.    Info located on Home page under POG at Five (which is now actually 16).    W Nelson McCullough

[3putt]

Let me offer my Congratulations to those men and women that got the POG rolling back then.   We have been very fortunate to have a dedicated group of Officers and Directors from back in 1998, and NOW who give lots of time to make this the best Motorcycle Group to be associated with. CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF YOU, and THANK YOU  !!!    W Nelson McCullough

[rob w]

Yep I was thinking it's along the lines of what Nelson said. But actually in 'POG at Five", it says that event happened on the 20th of March.
Here's what got me started - I was looking at the new POG Membership Directory last night, and I see the 5 earliest members - Paul Danik, Alan Buehner, James Borer, Jeff Borer, and John Borer all joined on March 30, 1998. (which was a Monday)
Just thought I'd put a plug in for all the founding members. Thank you gentlemen.
Bob

[Paul Danik]

Geeze, has it been that long  !  Thank you gentlemen for the kind words, they are greatly appreciated And, THANK YOU to all of you POG members and Penton enthusiasts for being such great folks who help each other out in so many ways.

For my part, the formation of the POG may have been a bit selfish, reason being, the hay-days of the Penton Sportcycle were wonderful as they played out, but in later years reflecting back it became more and more apparent just how incredible what John Penton had done really was, and personally I wanted to revisit those days.

What also came into focus as time went on was how the key players in the creation of the Penton Sportcycle, as well as the employees and dealers, all seemed to pool the collective talents and energy to form what was a powerful dynamo that overcame what to others would have surely been insurmountable situations.

In the end, some factors completely out of John Penton's control did bring the end to the production of the Penton Sportcycle and the Hi-Point line of products, but those days were, and are, well worth celebrating, remembering and documenting, hence the formation of the Penton Owners Group.

The John Penton book has provided us all with a fine look back to those glorious days, and many of the behind the scenes factors that were involved, but the upcoming John Penton movie will surely help to fill in any blanks.

Just between us, better get your popcorn ready as the John Penton movie premier should be occurring sometime in early to mid June

Paul

[ALB]

Time sure does fly when you are having fun.

It's hard to believe that it has been 16 years and that this club has outlast the years that the Penton motorcycle was being marketed.

March 20th 1998 was the official "start" date for the POG. We started having meeting to organize and put it all together after the Vintage Motorcycle Days event in 1997. There were many meetings and I thought that we were never going get it off the ground, but we did it in 1998.

In hindsight, the POG unofficially started back in 1968 with the second batch of motorcycles that came over to this country. As each one of us bought or dreamed of having one of those Penton motorcycles, we were gearing ourselves up for becoming members of the POG. We thought that our involvement with these bikes had disappeared when we stopped riding, parked our bikes, or sold them. Our memories about these bikes however, has always been with us and will go with us even to our graves and beyond.

In the last newsletter, Will Stoner was our "Member Profile". I was excited to have Will tell his story because even though he never owned a Penton motorcycle, he played a critical role in making it possible to start the POG. If he did not start doing the swap meets back in 1991 I most likely would not have gotten involved with buying that first small Penton collection. The guy that sold me those parts told me about Will's swap meets. It was at the first swap meet that I went to in Burbank, Ohio - to sell off all the Sachs parts I had (2 cardboard boxes worth) that I met Paul Danik. Paul educated me about what those parts were and that guys were looking for them. After paying attention to what Paul told me, I took those 2 boxes and stuck them under my table. After that event I started hunting down old dealer inventories and started buying them up.

If I had not heard about Will's swap meets....
If I had not met Paul Danik ......
If Paul Danik had bought those 2 boxes of parts ....
I would not have become involved with selling Penton Parts and most likely there would be no POG today.

The POG is like a large puzzle. Everyone that had anything to do with Pentons is one piece of the puzzle. The first pieces that came together were the most critical for they saw most of what the picture of this puzzle would be. I am but one piece of this puzzle and I am amazed at how it has come together and how it is still coming together for completion. It is not finished and may never be completed and in some ways it doesn't matter. What does matter is all of us coming together, getting to know one another, sharing our stories, and helping each other.

Alan Buehner

[rd400pi]

Nicely stated, Al.

  Mike