Chapter History

It all started when two friends got together in a small town in the U. P.  Wes Fuller, Area Rep, Chapter M and Tom Makela from Indian River, thought there were enough Gold Wing riders in the Indian River area to start a GWRRA chapter. 

Tom’s work would not permit him to take the A/R job.  Tom approached his friend, Jerry Rubert, about starting a GWRRA chapter.  Jerry took the A/R job and Tom was the Assistant A/R.

In September, 1986, ten Gold Wing owners, State Director Duane Leudecking, State PR Mike Dixon, Wes Fuller, Tom Makela and Jerry arranged the first meeting at the Township Fire Hall and Chapter Z was on its way.  We were chartered in November 1986.

Our area covers all of the “tip of the mitt”, from the Mackinac Bridge, south to Waters, from Petoskey east to Onaway, with Indian River in the middle.

Our meetings are currently held on the fourth Sunday of the month at various restaurants. They start at 1:30 PM,  dates and locations can be found in our newsletters. While at the meeting members will order off the menu and dine together. From mid April to the end of September we do dinner rides on Tuesday nights. We meet at Berger King in Indian River and leave at 6 PM. Most of the time we go to a restaurant but about a third of the time we do a Brown Bag and picnic at a scenic area. Our annual camp out, known as the Kickoff Campout is held the first weekend in June. Our newsletter and web site will have a poster stating specifics such as location and events for the weekend. In mid 2007 the ADA who shall remain unnamed (Bernd) in one of  his last acts in office implied that we were "Trolls". Since we all know you should not mess around with trolls we adopted the troll as our mascot and use this in several events that we do. So remember if you come just south of the "bridge" KAUTION TROLLS or you may just get "trolled".    

Chapter Nickname – Straits Area Road Riders

Chapter Color – Silver

Chapter Motto – “We never go to have a bad time”

Chapter Reps/Directors

Jerry Rubert – 1986-1993

Dar & Joyce DeYoe –1994

Richard & Kandi Bunker – 1995-1996

Gary & Robin Nadell – 1997

Don & Debbie Loy – 1998-1999

Jerry & Sharon Baker – 2000-2001

Roland & Jennifer Lempke – 2002-2004

Chip Hiles 2005-Present