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April 2015
MBCA Ozark Section Newsletter
The Star of the Ozarks Local Events Regional Events Articles of Interest
Poker Fun Run
We’ll begin our Poker Fun Run at 9AM Saturday, April 25th, at the NWA MB Dealership in Bentonville. The Dealership will kick off our day with a continental breakfast and short presentation. The Poker Run will start at 10 a.m. sharp from the dealership with the Poker Run Marshall giving instructions for our event and providing participants with contest sheets ($10 per car); only one sheet will be issued for each vehicle. We’ll provide a map for each driver, which will include all the stops where the poker cards will be drawn. Your first card will be drawn at the Dealership with three (3) additional stops along the route. Your last card will be drawn at our final destination, Famous Dave’s at 609 N. 46th Street in Rogers, where we will have lunch at 1:30 p.m.
When
April 25, 2015
9:00 AM Breakfast 10:00AM Sharp – Poker Run begins
Where
Mercedes Benz of NWA
RSVP
Larry Altman 479.530.3019
This event is being organized by Bob and Patti Tetu and Larry
and Wanda Altman. See everyone on April 25th!
Welcome New Members
William Just Marianna
Ray Kannard Springdale
Thanks to Renewing Members for their Continued Loyalty
Member Member Since
David Chance 1995
Reid Fairchild 2005
Tanny Jones 2008
Brian Wells 2013
Warren Flynn 2014
Day Trip to Tulsa
What do Imported Cars, Irish Pubs, and Italian Villas have in common? The answer is the MBCA Ozark Section’s May 2015 Event. We will travel to Tulsa on Saturday, May 23rd, for a fabulous day trip which will include a visit to Jackie Cooper Imports followed by lunch at Kilkenny’s Irish Pub and a tour of the Philbrook Museum of Art. This unique museum is housed in a beautiful 1930’s Italianate Villa with lovely European-style gardens, statuary, inviting pools, and gorgeous fountains. With
a little imagination, you could be in Italy.
When
May 23, 2015
11:00 AM
Where
11:00 AM Jackie Cooper Imports
12:30PM Kilkenny’s Irish Pub
2:30PM: Philbrook Art Museum of Art
RSVP
Larry Altman 479.530.3019
Star Reflections Kathy Menold, Section President
I would like to apologize to Dave Jones and Ruth Shafer. I forgot to mention in the November 15, 2014 write up of The Star of the Ozarks newsletter a very special award that I presented to them at the Northwest Arkansas Mercedes-Benz Dealership. Dave and Ruth have been pioneer members of the MBCA Ozark Section. The Board and Club members honored them at the Mercedes-Benz dealership with a beautiful plaque for their past four years in which Dave served as the MBCA Ozark Section Club President, with Ruth’s continuous support. In the beginning of the MBCA Ozark Section, Dave and Ruth were the first “Rally Masters” hosting some great road trips. Joel and I have been on several of their rallies, and yes, it can become mind boggling, but a lot of fun. “Thank you again Dave and Ruth for committing your talents and wisdom to serve and support the MBCA Ozark Section Club”. As many of our members know, the MBCA Ozark Section was chartered in 1998. Vern Sutter was President, Roger Shuler
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The Star of the Ozarks
April 2015
was Secretary, Dave Jones was the Membership Director, and George Williams was the Advertising Director. The other original board members of the MBCA Ozark Section are no longer members. The first newsletter, The Shining Star of the Arkansas Ozark Country was released in March-April 1998. The May-June 1998 newsletter was renamed The Star of the Ozarks. If I am correct, Vern Sutter renamed the newsletter. I have been reading through the back issues of The Star of the Ozarks and have come across some interesting stories. I read a short story Paul Springmann had written about one of his episodes while owning his second Mercedes-Benz. Apparently he thought at first it was a practical joke being pulled on him. He was at work and had parked his 1981 280S Mercedes-Benz on Popular Street in downtown Rogers. At approximately 10:00 am a couple of police officers walked into his office, told him his car had been hit, and he should come with them to look at it. He didn’t believe them and half expected the candid camera guy would appear from around the corner. The officers insisted that this was no joke. He walked downstairs with the officers and sure enough, a driver had fallen asleep at the wheel, crossed the center line, and hit his MB head on. His car was no longer parked in the original spot, it had been pushed in front of a driveway. Paul had his MB since he was a sophomore in college and covered nearly three hundred thousand personal miles in his car. To replace it, he purchased a new ML320. Jim Carter has also written a story about buying Mercedes-Benz vehicles in this current newsletter. We welcome your comments and submissions for the newsletter. Your Mercedes-Benz stories are a great interest to all of us. Please submit these stories to me, Kathy Menold, President, [email protected]. I will forward them on to Paul Springmann to be printed in future issues of the newsletter. I want to remind all members that have not contacted Becky Deitz, our Hospitality Chairperson, please give her your birthday and anniversary dates. Becky sends out cards to each member on these special days. Contact: [email protected] or 479-466-5066. I would appreciate if you let me know if you have a significant date to celebrate for your birthday or anniversary. We have several members that have celebrated 30th, 35th, 40th, 45th, or 50th anniversaries that we have missed. This includes birthdays. I am aware of a few members, but I would like to hear of others. [email protected] The MBCA Ozark Section Board meetings are held four times a year. (The first Wednesday in the months of March, June, September, and December). These meetings are open to ANY MBCA Ozark Section member that would like to attend. We normally hold these meetings in a Board member’s home. If you
would like to join us, please contact me prior to the meeting at 479-756-6798 or [email protected]. Please remember, if you have any questions regarding the MBCA Ozark Section Club, please contact one of our Board
members listed in The Star of the Ozarks newsletter.
Ozark Section Birthdays
Frederick Paulsen Apr 03
Vicki Spranza Apr 07
Jim Deitz Apr 15
Barbara Freeman Apr 15
Wanda Altman Apr 20
Diane Paulsen Apr 21
Wayne Eris Apr 28
Ann Hubbs May 01
Donald Baker May 06
Jane Acord May 08
Mary Marks May 10
Dottie Miller May 11
Elizabeth Syer May 13
Klaas Voerman May 17
Guillermo Rosales May 20
Linn Reusswig May 20
Jan Anderson May 21
Ozark Section Anniversaries
Jeffrey and Denise Klepac Apr 05
Vern and Oleatha Sutter Apr 19
Dennis and Jan Anderson Apr 19
Hugh and Janet Showalter Apr 25
Reid and Donna Fairchild Apr 28
Don and Phyllis Klinger May 26
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April 2015
Ozark Section Supporter since 2015
Ozark Section Supporter since 2009
Ozark Section Supporter since 2015
Who’s Who? Ozark Section MBCA
4026 Jessica Lane Springdale, AR 72764
Officers, Directors and Committee Chairs
President Kathy Menold 479.756.6798
Vice-President Events Chair
Larry Altman 479.530.3019
Secretary Ruth Shafer 479.756.6943
Treasurer Dr. Patti Tetu 479.981.9389
Regional Director Gene Jurick 972.461-1981
Past President Dave Jones 479.756.6943
Past President Robin Retzlaff 479.200.4208
President Emeritus Vern Sutter 479.855.6854
Director, Newsletter Editor
Paul Springmann 407.721.7184
Director, Advertising Chair
Gary Reusswig Home: 417.206.0068
Cell: 417.434.0582
Director, Membership and Historian
Bob Tetu 479.981.9388
Hospitality Chair Becky Deitz 479.466.5066 [email protected]
Technical Chair Roger Shuler 479.521.8383
MBCA Ozark Section Newsletter – published every two months, is the official newsletter of the Ozark Section of the Mercedes-Benz Club of America.
Opinions – Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of either MBCA or the Ozark Section. Neither MBCA nor the Ozark
Section endorses products or services but may, as part of our informational
activities, allow them to be cited in articles and notices.
Trademarks – The trade names and trademarks “Mercedes-Benz”, “Mercedes”, and the three-pointed star in a circle are owned by DBAG and
are authorized for use by its licensees which include MBCA, exclusively.
Reprints – Reprinting original material herein is permitted if a proper attribution (source, including date of issue) is shown.
Advertising – We welcome advertisers whose subject matter is relevant to MBCA or of interest to members of the Ozark Section. Advertising runs for
one year (six issues) starting with the March /April issue. MBCA members
may place a classified ad for free providing that ad is Mercedes specific. No inference should be made that products or services advertised herein have
been approved by the MBCA/Ozark Section board of directors or this
newsletter editor.
Articles and Submissions – Copy should be emailed to the editor by the 10th
of the month prior to the next issue. For example, submissions for the
July/August issue should be received by the editor by June 10th. The editor reserves the right to edit all material; submission of material constitutes
permission to edit and publish that material. No assumption should be made
that the editor has authenticated any information in materials submit
Ozark Section Supporter since 2015
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April 2015
The Accidental Owners Submitted by Jim Carter
In 2012, Hewlett-Packard went through some tumultuous events. A change of senior leadership as well as C.E.O. led to several large workforce reductions. Some reasonable packages were offered, so reading the writing on the wall, I accepted one and retired at 59½ in August that year. My lovely wife, DeEdra and I assumed I would continue my 35 year career in the I.T. business, but after using a company provided fleet car for too many years we realized that I would need a vehicle. My role in I.T. has always been engineering and my special niche had been customer escalations on business critical systems. This put me on the road a lot. 24,000 miles per year doesn’t seem like a lot, but it was mostly long-distance highway driving as I covered the five-state South Central U.S. with occasional trips to Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Denver, and other places in the great frozen North. I had always driven to my customers’ site so I had the trunk full of stuff I “might” need and the freedom to arrive, stay, and leave on their schedule – not the airlines. It also allowed DeEdra to occasionally travel with me when I was going to on-site for an extended period. (We went to Denver for 10 days and ended up being there for almost 3 months.) So, now to replace the fleet car with something of my own. I wanted something inexpensive, reliable, comfortable, respectable, and – did I say inexpensive? I started shopping online with several different sites and began to realize that I would probably end up with a foreign car of some sort. I finally located a Hyundai Sonata at a small independent dealer in Tontitown and made arrangements for DeEdra and me to go see it. Being the pragmatic engineer that I am, I looked numbers – fuel efficiency, weight, capacity, service record, etc. DeEdra on the other hand looked at appearance, safety, reliability, comfort, and whether or not she felt good about me driving the car. Lucky for me, DeEdra wasn’t impressed with that particular vehicle, but the dealer was getting ready to sell her own personal ’05 Mercedes-Benz E320. DeEdra suggested we take it for a test drive just to see what an MB was like, and … it was simply wonderful. Long story short, even though we didn’t know Roger or any of the really great folks at Shuler’s Autohaus yet, we bought this MB. And even though I had to put brakes, flex disks, and a fuel pump on it, it was actually an inexpensive car when I started really using it. Plus, it was absolutely the best riding and handling, most reliable and comfortable car I had ever owned. We learned about Shuler’s Autohaus and met Roger during a minor service, read the bulletin board in his waiting area, joined MBCA, and attended our very first meeting which was the Technical Session in February 2013. DeEdra and I both came to like my E320 so much that we found another one for her in September 2013 sitting on a parking lot in Rogers with a For Sale sticker in the window. The owner took it to Roger and Shuler’s did a pre-buy inspection on this one and we bought it without ever driving it. We didn’t even know about dynamic seats until they grabbed us when we took a corner fast enough. After deciding I was going an entirely different direction and becoming a Realtor® I learned I needed something larger, and with four-wheel drive, so last fall I traded my E-320 to Roger for an ’07 GL-450 he had just taken in. I use my vehicle as a tool so while my E-320 was a great car, it wasn’t much for off-road use. My very first land sale resulted in my clients having to help push me out of a snow bank in the hills West of Chester, AR. Recently, our daughter LaDeana and her family began talking about replacing their ’04 Ford Explorer so we invited her to the Tech Session this year where we introduced her to Roger and his crew as well as other Ozark Section members. Less than a week later, I drove her down to Fayetteville to pick up her “new” ’07 ML500. She had secretly begun wanting an MB every time she borrowed DeEdra’s and to be able to acquire Misty’s “expertly serviced ML500” from Roger has made LaDeana a real happy camper. She and the grandkids are already planning some camping trips as soon as the weather starts to cooperate. The crew at Shuler’s Autohaus and our friends in the Ozark Section have made owning and driving our Mercedes’ a simply outstanding
experience, and have converted an accidental owner into a real happy fan.
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April 2015
Come Taste the Wine Submitted by Kathy Menold, Section President
Pictures by Patti Tetu
For the last several years the MBCA Ozark Section Club has held a wine tasting event during the month of January in a member’s home. This has become a great experience to savor the taste of fine wines, wonderful appetizers, and engage in developing friendships with old and new members. The event was held at Hank and Jean Euler’s home, in Rogers, AR on Saturday evening, January 24th. We had 28 members participate. The wine sampling program was changed this year as in the years past. Hank and Jean bought 3 types of red wine and 3 types of white wine. The members who participated in the tasting donated $5.00 each and were asked to decipher each type of wine and also vote for both their favorite red and white wine. The Reds were: J. Lohr Wildflower (voted best of the three), Gascon Malbec, and Old Soul Old Vine Zinfandel. The Whites were: The White Night Viogneir (voted best of the three), Simi Savignon Blanc, and Chateau St. Jean Chardonnay. After tallying up the ballots, Dave Jones was the top red wine connoisseur winning crystal stemmed Burgundy wine glasses and Barb Thomas was the top white wine connoisseur, winning two fine bottles of white wine in a carrying case. Hank explained that the average cost of each bottle of wine was approximately $13.00. We were also given wine trivia questions by Larry Altman. Each person that answered a question correctly was given a grab bag prize by Wanda Altman. It was a lot of fun on just how much or how little we know about wine. We were delighted to welcome a new couple to the event, Bob and Sharon Frye from Bentonville, AR. Our MBCA Ozark Section Club is growing and we are proud to say we currently have 115 members plus associate members. I would like to thank Hank and Jean once again for hosting the 2015 Wine Tasting event and Larry and Wanda Altman for their help to organize the event. These events are hosted by members of the MBCA Ozark Section in order for us to enjoy the great experiences together. It does not involve a great deal of effort to organize or plan an event, just some ideas, a little time, and most of all fun. If you would like to help with an event, please contact Larry Altman, our Vice President/Event Coordinator. [email protected] or 479-530-3019.
Ozark Section Supporters Since 2015
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Annual Technical Event and Shuler Autohaus Submitted by Kathy Menold, Section President
Pictures by Patti Tetu and Shulers
Roger Shuler’s family and staff presented another outstanding annual technical event on Saturday, February 21, 2015 at Shuler’s Autohaus in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The 44 members and guests were served a wonderful continental breakfast prior to the program. Ray Kannard and Norma Tomboulian were new prospective members and they joined the MBCA Ozark Section shortly thereafter. Other guests were Kevin Murphey’s friend Elaine Rosen, Dennis Anderson’s son Eric Anderson, Jim and DeEdra Carter’s daughter LaDeana Duncan, Kathy and Robin Retzlaff’s neighbor John Lytle, and Dana Delong.
Each year Roger and his staff (which includes his two daughters, Misty and Christy), provide our members with the knowledge we need to know to keep our Mercedes-Benz vehicles beautiful and in top running condition. This year Roger focused on what to look for when buying a new or used Mercedes-Benz. There are advantages and disadvantages when buying a new or used vehicle. One important factor is to have a used vehicle inspected before making a purchase. Roger gave each member a free inspection coupon to use at Shuler’s Autohaus when considering buying a vehicle. Another important tip was to never buy at vehicle at night or when it’s wet. If the vehicle has ever been repainted, the flaws will show up in the daylight and when it is dry. Tires are also a very important issue, especially making sure the right size of tires are on the vehicle you plan to purchase. There were many
questions and answers given throughout the program, and everyone left with a good knowledge of what to consider when purchasing a vehicle. Roger had several new Mercedes-Benz models in the service bay for us to view that were on loan from the Mercedes-Benz Dealership of Northwest Arkansas.
During the event Patti and Bob Tetu had arranged with Shuler’s for our club to have a “Silent and Live Auction”. The proceeds from the auction will to go towards the 2015 Christmas Party. There was a minimum bid sheet on each item. We were very fortunate to have the donated items given to our club from our members and the Mercedes-Benz Dealership of Northwest Arkansas. The dealership donated a backpack, tote bag, and Leatherman’s tool set. Porfirio Gutierrez handcrafted a miniature motorcycle from wrist watch parts, Klaas and Jeri Voerman donated a gold trimmed 4 piece place setting, Dave Jones and Ruth Shafer donated a set of six Mercedes-Benz glasses and a men’s shirt and tie, Bob and Patti Tetu donated two Mercedes-Benz baseball caps, a Lexus baseball cap, and a Mercedes-Benz visor, and Joel and Kathy Menold donated a wine service set. There were
numerous other items that the club had purchased from the MB Club Store. After the silent auction, Hank Euler became our live auctioneer. Mary and Don Baker had donated a Cajun Dinner Party for 6 to 8 people which included a five course meal. Stuffed artichoke andouille and Tasso stuffed mushrooms, creamy corn and crab bisque, shrimp remoulade over mixed greens, crawfish fettuccini, bananas foster bread pudding, and wine. Bidding started at $100 and the final bid was given to Joel and Kathy Menold in which they split the cost with Robin and Kathy Retzlaff, Dave Jones and Ruth Shafer, and Jim and Becky Deitz. Mary and Don will be serving a dinner for 8 at their lovely home in Shadow Valley. All the seafood will be fresh from Louisiana.
Roger Shuler
Porfirio presents Cajun Dinner
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Before we ended the event, Porfirio Gutierrez presented Roger Shuler with a handcrafted plaque he had made. It was a rendition of a 1956 MB 300 Adenauer given in appreciation to Roger for all he has done over the years for our club and its members. Roger is one of the original members who organized the MBCA Ozark Section in 1998. After the meeting, several of the members had lunch at the Whole Hog BBQ Restaurant in the Fiesta Square. We all want to thank Larry and Wanda Altman and Patti and Bob Tetu for their special work giving our members another great event. As a reminder, these events can’t be done without the help of our members in the MBCA Ozark Section. I have said over and over again how much fun and self-filling it is when you become involved. If you are interested in helping to host an event, please contact Larry Altman, our MBCA Ozark Section Vice President/Event Coordinator. These events take some time in planning and it’s always
appreciated by the Board of Directors for your assistance. Contact: [email protected] or 479-530-3019.
2015 SCHEDULE OF EVENTS Ozark Section MBCA
Date Event Location
Apr 25 Poker Fun Run NWA MB Dealership
May 23 Jackie Cooper Imports Philbrook Museum
Tulsa
June 27-28 Art of the Car Concours Kansas City Art Institute
Kansas City
July 25 Membership Event El Pueblito Restaurant Bella Vista
Aug 22 Titanic Museum Tour Branson
Ozark Section Supporter since 2013
New Members Rob and Sharon Frye
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Ozark Section Supporter since 2011
Ozark Section Support since 1997!
Ozark Section Newsletter Paul Springmann, Editor 13281 Timberline Road Bentonville, AR 72712
Change of Address? Mercedes-Benz Club of America
800.637.2360 www.mbca.org