Hunter S. Thompson, Song of the Sausage Creature
Ever wonder what our origins were? We got with Dick Tinsley, Vech, and BMWMOA to pick their brains and records about the early days. Here’s a composite of what they told us.
BMW Owners of Mississippi was formed in early 1966. Lloyd Wallace, Bill Marshall, and Dick Tinsley had decided they should try to gather the few BMW owners in the state into an organized BMW group. Membership was restricted to BMW owners and wives. Dick was the President, the late Dave Malcolm was the VP (he later became Mississippi’s first Ambassador). So, our early club was founded about the same time as the oldest chartered club (known to BMW MOA)—the BMW Club of Houston. The bulk of the clubs were founded in the 1970s after the national organization got off the ground.
In March 1971, the ground work for the national organization was laid, BMW Owners of America (BMWOA), but the national club was not incorporated (in California) until April 6, 1972 under the name BMW Motorcycle Owners of America, Inc. The BMW (AUTOMOBILE) Owners had expressed concern over the national organization using their copyrighted name. The motorcycle group responded by putting the word “Motorcycle” in the title. And that’s been the name since.
Leading up to the January 1972 national BMWOA board meeting, and shortly afterwards, a split developed in the national BMWOA. Bill Harmer resigned as president of BMWOA because, in his absence, the other board members did not ratify his vision of the BMWOA. Differences included whether the organization should be top-down driven, compared to a grassroots organization, and Bill’s desire for BMWOA to be affiliated with the International Four Owners Association (a Honda four-cylinder group). Vern Hansen served as interim president and then the first president of the newly incorporated BMW MOA.
Bill Harmer formed and became president of the BMW Riders Association.
The Mississippi club, BMW Owners of Mississippi, applied for a charter from the national headquarters, granted as of 2/1/72 (club charter #15). One fly in the ointment was that a club had to have a minimum of 10 members to be chartered. Inasmuch as there weren’t 10 BMWs in all of Mississippi, we enlisted a few of our wives to make the minimum of 10 members. Alabama was club #5, and they were a great help to us in getting BMWOM chartered, organized, and up and running as part of a national group. Following the national organization, our state club changed it’s name to the BMW Motorcycle Owners of Mississippi . Dick Tinsley still has an original patch of the BMW Owners of America (without the word “motorcycle” in it), as well as the original patch of the BMW Owners of Mississippi.
Our club continued to grow and over the years we reached around 25 members (excluding wives) – all members were on the coast except for one in Hattiesburg, and one in Laurel. We heard about one BMW rider in Starkville, but he was not in our group. Except for these three, all of our people were active duty military with one retired US Army member, the late Don Edgington of Long Beach. The fact that we were almost totally a military group made it a bit rough as we had people frequently leaving or arriving on the coast. This required changes of officers quite frequently. For instance, Dick Tinsley was the President three different times. Lloyd Wallace was President 2 times and Bill Marshall 2 times. The founding members, with their frequent leaving and returning to the area, managed keep the club active and going for about 12 years. The last President was MSgt Bill Marshall. After he was sent to Turkey, there was little leadership left. Like a ship without a rudder, the club disbanded in 1979 for lack of interest and lack of members.
The club was reborn in 1984 by a group of riders consisting of Vech, Gene McKinney, Lloyd & Jutta Rauschkolb, Larry & Louise Moss, and Ronnie & Robin Phillips. The organizational meeting was held in Starkville. Dick Tinsley showed up at the second meeting and got involved. Dick is the last member of the original club who’s still with us.
Some time after the Mississippi group was re-organized, it was renamed the BMW Riders of Mississippi, chartered as club #199 (we’re listed on the MOA website as founded 2/1/90), and we obtained a charter from the BMW Riders Association (charter # 105, 1990). In 2007, we let the membership with the RA lapse, and in Spring, 2008, the MOA gave BMW-ROM the club #15 charter, being the legacy of the orginal Mississippi group.
BMWROM was initially incorporated in the state of Mississippi on May 23rd 1991. Our corporate ID# is 0580516.
