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Provided by Augie Holtkort - Member 0002

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Unfortunately, during these times in 1991 & 1992, the club was only meeting once a month at the Feed Bag with an occasional visit to a members home. It is really not know the exact reason, but possibly due to a lack of any other activities, interest in the club began to decline, and less and less members attended the monthly meetings.

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In late 1992, the President at the time, Richard Martin - Member 0001, left the club for unknown reasons and the other officers decided to drop out. The club then temporarily disbanded in September of 1992 after only a year or so in existence.  It was at this point that the club was in jeopardy of permanently coming to an end without a leader to pick the club up and continue with its vision. In January of 1993, at a meeting at the Feed Bag, members Augie Holtkort, Jerry Palmer - Member 0003, and Augie's wife Linda met to discuss the future of the club. While Jerry felt the club was dying and not worth resurrecting, Augie stepped up and said the club will continue to go on and will grow.

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Throughout 1993, Augie carried the club handling the offices of President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Newsletter Editor all as one person. Augie was the only officer handling the club business and carrying the load during 1993. It was a tough and hard journey to bring the club back to life. The growth of the club was slow, but steady and by years end, they went from 3 members to a little over a dozen. Members were seeked out any way possible, calling former members, flyers on Pickup windshields that members found and talking to truck owners when they got a chance.

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There has been some confusion in the past of the clubs official founding year and with the explanation above, the club was officially founded in 1991 by Richard Martin, temporarily disbanded in 1992, and then later resurrected in January of 1993 by Augie Holtkort.

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In 1994, at the January meeting held at member Scottie Parks - Member 0004's house, Augie Holtkort was formally elected as Club President. At the same meeting, the members decided that it would make a lot of sense that the club should have a display at the Dallas Autorama Show and would be a good way to show some of the members trucks and was a good way to seek out prospective members. Autorama in February 1994 was the turning point for the club, and for club membership. The show by itself gained 10 new members and 25 prospective members in which the membership almost doubled in February 1994 due to the event. Thus, was the beginning of our annual involvement with the Dallas Autorama Show each year since.

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The club then began attending and participating in more and more shows on a regular basis, which again proved to be a good way to gain new prospective members. Meetings would occur on a regular basis monthly at a different spots throughout the metroplex for more of a variety of atmospheres and, members also gathered for breakfast some months, as well as meeting for club "wrench" sessions at someone (or some members) garage.

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Also during this year, the club began to update itself by redesigning the club shirt from what was worn since early 1993 to add more colors and much better graphics. This was all thanks to club member James Dodson - Member 0102 who was also an artist. Some of his club art can be found listed in the early years on our Club Logos history page located here: http://www.pickupsnpanels.org/about-us-main/club-logos

In late 1994, membership was starting to increase and members were joining from all across the North Texas area. It is believed that in the later months of 1994, a vote was passed to change the name of the club to Pickups-N-Panels of North Texas to better suit the club and properly advertise the club in the North Texas area, instead of just Dallas.

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It was in 1995 that for a long period of time, it was the first year since resurrecting the club where a group of officers where officially established. Having a very active Treasurer and Vice President  was important and helped support the success of the club. Membership had grown to over 80 members and like most clubs, we had about 25% that were really active and others who participated when they could. The upside was that the club had many dues paying members which meant that the club could stretch and do things that smaller clubs couldn't.

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One of the really active members who really liked to work on his computer, accepted the position of Newsletter Editor. This highly active member's name was Kevin Jones - Member Number 0043, who is later known at our annual show for the KJ Award. Kevin took the job by the horns and changed the "look and feel" of the monthly newsletter publication for the better in every way.

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Also during this year, Club President Augie Holtkort was friends with the President of Custom Truckers of Tyler and together, along with another club in Austin, TX called Just Old Trucks of Austin collectively decided to have a joint picnic in Waco, TX and was one of the first collaborated events between other clubs and other National Association chapters. it was a huge success and developed a bond between other clubs who shared the same vision.

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1996, the club was now well over 100 members strong. Officers were in amassment of the number of members on the membership list. It was resurrected by 3 members in 1993 with a desire for a club to belong to, and 3 years later membership was well over 100!

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Activities expanded having club picnics, as well as entering various car shows. In August, several members made a trip to Oklahoma City for the National Street Rod Association (NSRA) Nationals. It was a adrenaline rush for all members who went, even club member Patrick Neff - Member 0010 who was a parts junkie, spent a whole afternoon at the swap meet!

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1997 rolls around and membership was well over 120 members strong!

 

The Next Era

Provided by Unknown Member

To Be Written