On Dec. 1, 2019, thirty-eight members of LSP gathered at the South Shore Harbor Resort and Hotel for their Sunday Brunch buffet. This was the first part of our Holiday Party. The restaurant staff - Enrique and Karen took great care of us.

Following lunch we caravanned the short distance to our home in the Meadows. Knowing that we were gathering at our house on Dec. 1, Carol put it into overdrive and got the tree, the snow village, the Santa collection and a lot more in place before Thanksgiving. Great job! Each family present also had a small remembrance under the tree.

February is open for someone to arrange an activity/meeting. Please let us know if you have an idea. Chris Baccaro, Robert Quinn and myself drove antique cars. We would like for everyone to make their reservation at the Holiday Inn Express for the Salado Meet. We need to fill 'em up to get free meeting and hospitality rooms. Call direct at 254-947-4004 and tell them you wish to reserve a room in the Packard block for the Texas Packard Meet. Be sure to send your registration form to Rena Sartin.

Ben & Janice Carter were the lucky winners of the 50/50 and took home $48. This was their first time to ever win!

Carol and I want to send out a BIG THANK YOU to all the ladies who graciously added to the sweets served at our house. It is the season to be thankful for our many blessings. I have so many; it would be difficult to list them. First and foremost, would be my family. Among the others I would have to include our Packard family. We joined LSP in the '70's. While we have lost members for various reasons, including mortality, we have gained new friends along the way. Some of us have grown old together and our children and grandchildren are active members of the club. We are very fortunate to have such a close knit circle of friends.

On Saturday, November 9 more than 30 Lone Star Packard members and friends met at the Pizza Shack in Willis, Texas. Shirley and Tony arranged for us to meet for lunch and then have a tour of Bob and Gayle Bucher's beautiful home and extensive auto collection. Their home is not a little log cabin; the image of a small structure like those Abraham Lincoln or Daniel Boone called home might come to mind. This luxury log home is a very large structure built from logs and stone. Each stone fits perfectly together, because they were delicately laid out before being added to the building. The Bucher’s built the home themselves while they lived on site in their motor home. Gayle gave a wonderful tour and provided refreshments. This massive home is truly something to see, and her décor and fall decorations are amazing. If you missed this LSP event, it was not the one to miss! You really missed a treat!

The Bucher’s' collection includes: Hupmobile, Cord, Auburn, a lot of really nice Studebakers, and five Packards. I especially loved the '55 Studebaker Speedster. We are happy to announce the hosts joined LSP. If you missed the tour, perhaps there will be an opportunity in the future.

Jan announced the November birthdays and passed out an invitation to the Christmas party which will be held in League City on December 1. We will meet at 1 pm in the restaurant area of the South Shore Harbor Hotel and Resort for the Holiday buffet. Price will be $24 per person and the club will pay the tax and gratuity. Following lunch, we will caravan the short distance to the Baccaro home for more fun. Our January activity will be a club effort to help Janice Musgrove liquidate some of her late husband's extensive collection of cars and parts. We will meet at the Sartin's for a covered dish lunch and then those who are interested will move to Dale's shop in nearby Brookshire. February and March are open so if you are willing to organize a meeting, please let us know.

April, of course, is the 43rd Annual Texas Packard Meet. Our meet was listed in the last Cormorant News Bulletin so out of state applications will soon be coming to Rena. If you do not have your room you should consider calling them now. Registration and hotel details can be found at the www.texaspackardmeet.org site. 

After some discussion, the officers agreed to serve another term and they were elected by acclamation. Ben gave a report on the up-coming LSP display at the Courtlandt Place Christmas Home Tour. If interested in showing your car, give Ben a call. New member John Dalton brought the most beautiful 1937 Packard Six you could ever hope to see. I doubt if there is a better one in all of PAC. John Lortz brought the red '53 convertible and the Baccaros brought the '55 Clipper. We want to give a huge thank you to Shirley and Tony Darrow for setting up our November Fall Tour and meeting. Have a great Thanksgiving. See you December 1st.

Sunday, October 13, members and guests were privileged to visit the Tony Gullo Auto Museum in Magnolia. Our club visited this museum about six years ago. However, this was the first time many members and guests had the opportunity to lay eyes on this extensive and extraordinary collection of over 250 classic cars in a facility complete with a mock gas station, 1950s diner, soda shop, Christmas village, and cars outfitted with car hops and window trays, and a drive in movie. A range of vehicles from the dawn of the automobile industry including a Yugo convertible to present day super cars greeted us. As this is a private museum and not open to the public we felt honored to visit. Ben contacted Mr. Gullo and he graciously extended an invitation for us to come for a tour. Mr. Gullo asks for a donation for admission which he uses to help fund his large Christmas for Kids Charity held annually for deserving kids and their families in the Magnolia area. Our club paid for members. Since our last visit, many cars have been added. This is the greatest single private collection in East Texas. I have visited the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn and the Hickory Corners Museum and this collection ranks right up there with them. Mr. Gullo features a wide variety of autos including at least ten beautiful Packards. He knows about each car and was a terrific tour guide. Even though I was a Gene Autry fan, I loved seeing the two autos belonging to Roy Rogers. One was a half-ton late 30's "Woodie” that Ford built especially for him, as there was never a half-ton station wagon built by Ford. Rogers used it to move his "Sons of the Pioneers" around. There are lots of pictures of it with the group singing around the open tail gate. The other car is a 1946 Cadillac sedan which Rogers had customized to include a hatch back which opened up as a chuck wagon with Woodie side treatment similar to Chrysler town and country and longhorns coming out of the side of the hood with six guns as door handles. There was also a roof rack holding everything from saddles to guitars. .

Even though they are not Packards, I am going to suggest to our friend Bob Fuller that he ask Mr. Gullo if one or both of these Roy Roger's cars could be celebrity cars at the 2020 Keels and Wheels Show. (By the way, Gene Autry had a Packard convertible). In addition to the cars, trucks, and motorcycles, there were also many period signs and memorabilia adorned to the walls of this facility. The Gullo Museum Tour will serve as one of our charitable events along with the annual Keels and Wheels which benefits the Home for Children in La Porte.

Prior to the tour, we met at the Rancho Grande Mexican Restaurant just a short distance from the museum. J.C. And Sherry live nearby and they recommended the place. It was a winner! Even though we had more than 30 in our private room, all the food came out together and it was good!

Tony got his share of teasing because he sold tickets and won $50 in the 50/50. It reminded me of the time we won when our grandchild picked the winning ticket. We had numerous guests as the members were encouraged to invite friends and each was introduced. Maybe we can pick up some new members as we have several active members that we picked up after they attended as guests. Some have even bought Packards such as the Carlsons, Andersons and longtime members, the Trokeys. We discussed upcoming activities, the Texas Packard Meet, and we had our usual round table of up-dates on Packard acquisitions, restorations etc.

Our November 9th meeting will be a tour to a private collection in Willis, Texas. Willis is located on old SHW 75 between Huntsville and Conroe. The owners are friends of the Darrows and they have multiple makes including five Packards in the collection. Tony told me they would also like to join LSP! More information will be coming as we get closer to the event.

On December 1st, we will have our Christmas/Holiday luncheon at the South Shore Harbour Hotel and Resort in League City. Following lunch, we will travel approximately 5 miles to our house for more fun and fellowship.

Assistant Director, John Lortz and I are working on tentative plans to organize a shop visit and sale to Dale and Janice Musgrove's garage in the Brookshire area. John and I promised Janice to do this last year but for various reasons, some of them health related, we never got around to getting the event organized. We will try to go out ahead of time to check it out. Parts and cars are available. I doubt if many parts go back more than the late 40's but I do remember that Dale worked on Jim Rice's '35 120 that Dick Bautch now owns, so who knows what else might be in there. More information will follow as we get closer including an exact date after we consult with Janice.

Again, this was a really great meeting despite the heavy traffic for some, caused by the Renaissance Festival. (Tony braved it and brought his dependable '57 Clipper.) Thanks to the Carter's for making all the arrangements and also for the cake they brought. Thank you goes out to the Trokeys for accompanying the Carters on the recon trip. A big THANK YOU goes to Mr. Gullo for his hospitality and for all the good work he does for his community!

On Sunday, September 15 Lone Star Packards met at Big Horn BBQ on Smith Ranch Rd off SH 288. Despite the heat, we had 25 members. Two brave souls brought their Packards. Many thanks to Bill Anderson who drove his cool '41 coupe and to Tony Darrow who arrived in style in his '57 sedan.

The meeting room is very nice at Big Horn and the food is great and restaurant wonderfully decorated for fall. There were televisions across the wall including several tuned to the Texans game. We are so spread out that Big Horn is also centrally located. We not only have folks coming from the coast and as far away as Orange but also from Kingwood and Katy. We may use Big Horn again.

Since we come from the opposite direction, I did not realize there were a lot of construction obstacles on 288 coming from the north. I apologize for not providing you with an alternate route. We had our monthly 50/50 drawing. “Lucky” John Eanes won for the second month in a row. (Did you hear that Caroline Calistrat? somebody is challenging you for the most wins in the 50/50 drawing. We need to see you and Mike soon.) Jan read the monthly birthdays and she was included. We welcomed new member Robert Taylor to his first LSP meeting. Read his information on the Courtlandt Place Christmas home tour in the September issue of the Owner's Manual (link: Owner's Manual - September 2019 ). We said goodbye to the Chuck and Denise Fleming from Baytown who are moving to Kansas. I told them our friend Steve Christy is in the area so they should get active in that Packard region. Our next meeting will be Sunday, October 13 in Magnolia. Ben explained that we will meet at an area restaurant for lunch and then go to The Tony Gullo Museum. The club will pay the $10/person donation which Mr. Gullo gives to charity.

Tony and Shirley are handling the November 9 meeting. This will serve as our fall tour. We will meet somewhere on the north side and caravan to Willis, Texas to see a private collection that includes five Packards. Details are being worked out.

Chris reminded us that we will have the Christmas Holiday Brunch at the South Shore Harbor Resort and Hotel in League City. Following the brunch, we will drive the short distance to our house for fun and fellowship.

Registration forms for the Texas Packard meet were distributed. For those who could not make it, please go to http://www.texaspackardmeet.org to get a copy. The weather in southeast Texas at mid-day during the summer months is just not conducive to driving non air conditioned sixty plus years old cars! Your director threw out the possibility of having some breakfast meetings next summer. Think about it. How about “Cars and Coffee”?

See you in Magnolia if not before.

Many thanks to Paula and Lenny for arranging the August 17th monthly meeting, held at The Lake Houston Club Room in the Del Webb Sweet Grass Community where they live. I must say it was first class! The air conditioning worked perfectly, which we really deserved after the A/C failure at our last meeting (held at the Potato Patch Restaurant). The club furnished BBQ from Rudy's and each member brought something to go along with the main course. It was all delicious!
We had the pleasure of enjoying an educational and sometimes humorous program presented by a DPS trooper that Lenny and Paula arranged. The topic was new traffic laws which will go into effect in Texas September 1. We got so caught up in the program it went longer than expected, as we had to be out of the room by 2 pm and it left only about 15 minutes or less for our meeting.
Although I tried to cover everything, I did not do justice to some topics and totally skipped others.
First, I want to apologize for not recognizing Ann Stebenne. It was great to see Ann and we want her to attend whenever she can. Ann also brought along a picture and the sheet music to the popular 1920's song depicting a love story titled the Packard and the Ford. We used it as the second drawing in our 50/50. The Andersons won the cash drawing and the Eanes won the drawing for the Packard memorabilia donated by Ann.
Only one Packard made it to the meeting - Lenny drove his 1941 Packard Touring Sedan.
In addition, Tony gave us an update on the club’s financials and we are solvent.
Ben gave us an update on membership. We have 88 families and around 100 people.
We also have new members – Johnny and Terry Scott, and John and Mary Ann Dalton. Their membership applications have been received and dues paid. A new roster will be published with their information.
Stay cool and we will see you next month.

On Sunday, June 23rd we met in the private room at the Potatoe Patch on FM 1960. Over the years we have met there at least 4 times and maybe more with no problems. The temp was 95 with intermittent rain that made it steamy. We had a great turnout of 39 members and guests.

Unfortunately, this visit to the restaurant was one for the books! The meeting room was not ready and we had to wait around while they cleaned up confetti etc. from a party last night, serving staff was limited and the room air conditioning was not functioning.

Now, after the "not so good": we had not had an official meeting in a couple of months and it was good to see everyone who attended today. On a very happy note, Gianna, our 5 year old granddaughter, drew the lucky ticket for the 50/50 and it happened to be Carol's!! What a surprise! We acknowledged all the June and July birthdays and Jan passed the most up to date roster around for people to proof and add any corrections. Many corrections were noted and an updated Membership Roster will be distributed soon. Rich, our Treasurer, reported that we continue to be very solvent and have enough to underwrite special events and make donations to our various projects. We announced that after 18 years serving as the treasurers for our club, Rich and Karen will be stepping down. We gave them a round of applause which was well deserved! We also announced that Shirley and Tony Darrow will take over those responsibilities. Our funds will be in another set of good hands and we appreciate them stepping up! Leon Ahlers will now become our Pre-War Technical Director. Leon has a 1941 4 door 120 convertible plus he has restored several pre-war Fords. He said with his knowledge plus You Tube he should be able to help you with your questions.

We had up-dates from some of our members regarding Packards in progress:

I shared that I finally found a factory a/c mount for our '55 so that we can add air for this time of year! I just need to start gathering all the components! Remember the '40 and '54 Packards I shared with you a couple of weeks ago that are for sale? John Lortz and his son John have gone in as partners on the '54 and it will soon be here. It is a real barn find and has less than 30,000 miles on the odometer! The lady still has the 1940 4 door 110 that was also her father's. It will need total restoration but is all there and can likely be had for $1500 or less. If interested, call John Lortz as he has seen it and has the contact information. Speaking of 1940 110's, Tom Drisdale gave a report on the progress of his coupe. The body work end is in sight. He will soon be moving it to a shop close to his home for the mechanical work to be done.

There will be no meeting in July as we traditionally do not schedule a meeting for the month of the national club meet. Our members Jerry Erhman and Mike Grimes will be attending.

We are working on a possible tour of a collection for the August meeting but if it does not happen we will come up with something else. (IT WILL BE A COOL SOMETHING ELSE!!) September is open and Ben and Janice are working on another trip to the Gullo Museum in October. We have some ideas for a fall tour in early November. One of them is a visit to the George Bush Library and graves of George and Barbara Bush in College Station. Tony also mentioned they have a friend in Willis that has a large collection, including a couple of Packards, who would welcome a visit. We might fit that in somewhere.

Jan and I have talked about the Christmas party which should be on our side of town this year. In 1998, we hosted the National Packard Club Meet at the South Shore Harbor Hotel and Resort. They have a regular Sunday buffet. I would like to pick a date in December that will not interfere with the AACA Christmas lunch. I left a message for the manager of the restaurant to call me to reserve 35 or so spaces for us and then after lunch come to our home which is close to the hotel. New member Robert Taylor has invited us to participate in the Yuletide Historic Home Tour on Courtlandt Place.

We will have more to follow on all these activities.

The 24th Annual Keels and Wheels celebration was last weekend. Despite the down pour on Friday night, we had great weather on Saturday and Sunday. There were 11 Packards this year and seven of them were from our club. A big thank you goes to those who displayed their Packard for this very worthy activity. We also had members displaying cars other than Packards. Jay and Mary Matthews showed a 1917 Chevrolet, Richard & Irina Mitchell showed their ’30 Packard, a ’31 LaSalle, ’31 Rolls Royce, and five Stutz, Jeff Pate with a highly customized Chevrolet his Classic Cars of Houston restored.

Over the years, Keels and Wheels have contributed more than a million dollars to charity. Much of that has gone to the former Boy's Harbor now known as Today’s Harbor for Children. As you know, K&W is one of our community service events each year.

Awards:
Dan Grilli won Best in Class with his ’48 Super 8. Our ‘55 Clipper won the silver award, 2nd place in the class. My '47 won a ribbon awarded by the youth judges from Hagerty. It was fun explaining to them the difference between a straight 8 and a v8. I appreciate Hagerty establishing this program to foster interest in classic cars by the younger generation. Our friend Angelica Brothers, who spoke at one of our meetings, was the sponsor of this group. Richard Mitchell won 1st place for one of his Stutz. Jay Matthews won the Tom Timmins Memorial Award presented by Evelyn for all the work he has done on his 1917 Chevrolet.

The 42nd Annual Texas Packard meet was a great success by every measure. I hesitate to mention names of those who helped for fear of leaving someone out but I am going to try anyway. We could not have pulled this off without the help of LSP members: Rena and Jack, Ben and Janice, Tony and Shirley, Rich and Karen, Bill and Judy, Doug and Maureen, Larry and Lily, Janice Musgrove, and JC and Sherry. In addition Assistant Director John was always offering to help as needed as well as new member Tom Drisdale. The Katy bunch did much of their work on Tuesday night work sessions making car tags, stuffing envelopes etc. It was our wish to begin the rebuilding of our meet after the expansion of Interstate 35 forced a move out of Salado. We had 75 master registrations which exceeded last year's total and 45 cars scheduled for the show. Unfortunately, while we had really cold weather to deal with a year ago, the rain in Salado had a very negative impact on how many of those cars actually showed up. Some got there but never got out of their box trailer. While many cars stayed home, the owners did not.

I am guessing the 75 registrations probably resulted in over 125 people. Lone Star Packard had 34 folks present counting the Myers who hold dual membership with Ark-La-Tex. I appreciate the support from LSP!
The numbers indicate the move back to Salado was the right decision. We had people from all over Texas plus six other states.
In order to make things work, we had to think out of the box. We had the show and the dinner off site at the Salado Civic Center operated by the school district. The school people were wonderful to work with; however, Saturday morning we had that really big down pour! We did not stay long before heading back to the hotel. Actually, the rain started just as the parade left the hotel and got worse the closer we got to the show field.
It also affected the number of people who were in front of the shops watching us parade down Main Street.
No decision yet but I think the consensus was that we have the people's choice show on the hotel grounds next year.
The Thursday night ice cream social and Packard bingo was a success and it likely will now become a regular event.

The Friday night mixer at the Barrow Craft Brewery was very popular. On Friday nights they have food trucks and an outdoor concert and craft beer as well as on site produced root beer. The brewery owns the land up to the edge of Salado Creek and we were allowed to park the Packards next to the creek.
It made for beautiful pictures and since this is a big deal every Friday night in Salado, a lot of people enjoyed looking at our cars. I am thinking maybe we should move the parade from Saturday morning to Friday evening for the trip from the hotel to the Barrow Brewery. There should be a lot more people on Main Street at that time to view the Packard parade.
We have time to think about next year’s schedule.

It took all 4 Texas Packard Clubs to make the return to Salado successful. Thank you all!

On Saturday the 16th, we met at the new Red River BBQ Restaurant in League City. The new building is much larger and it is located behind the original building where we have met before. The original building was remodeled and is now the Red River Cantina. Saturday was the all you can eat rib special and I noticed about half of our folks got the ribs. We had 27 people who sent an RSVP but one of those got the "hard luck" award. Jay took off from Bellville in plenty of time to get to our League City meeting but ran into one traffic snag along I-10 after another. When he finally thought the road was clear and he could make it they shut the freeway down for a long funeral procession. He finally gave up and was home after 3 hours. Thanks for trying Jay! Packards at the meeting We were happy to see the 5 Packards make it to the meeting. Thanks to the Carlsons for bringing the '56 Clipper, to the Eanes for bringing their '54 Pacific, to the Lortzs for bringing the '53 convertible, to Chris for bringing the '55 Clipper and we brought the '47 Clipper.

Following lunch, we traveled the short distance to our home in the Meadows. Carol had apple pie, key lime pie, brownies, and Blue Bell homemade vanilla. After everyone's sweet tooth was satisfied, we moved on to a short meeting. Basically, I just gave a summary of Salado preparations and distributed a copy of the schedule of events which will appear in everyone's registration material. We will also need to help Rena with registration and help Carol with decorating and setting up the Bluebonnet room at the civic center for our banquet. North Texas and Arklatex will be working with the hospitality room. We showed a copy of the car tags for the show that Jan has been working on.

I neglected to mention that Judy Anderson has had some health setbacks and I know she and Bill would appreciate prayers.

We lowered our dues this year to $10 annually, which is half the original amount. Out of approximately 50 families, we only have about 26 who have paid for 2019. Please send your check to the Trokeys as soon as possible so you can be in the next directory and not miss out on the emails

Plans for March are being formulated at this time and will be announced.

As we begin our 55th year as the nation’s third oldest region of PAC, we continue to not only be one of the oldest but one of the most active regions. We hope you will enjoy this first edition of our new format for the OWNER'S MANUAL which will now be a monthly rather than quarterly publication to keep us well informed.

Despite cold and very windy weather, 29 LSP members ventured to the western frontier of our membership area to visit the Hemi Hideout near Brookshire. Patricia and Ron arranged this visit for us and their other club, The Katy Cruisers.

Unfortunately, the storm which hit the area last night knocked out the electricity. Still, what little sunlight that came through the glass areas plus many folks using the light on their phone, we were able to check out the numerous examples of Chrysler "muscle cars". We last visited the hideout two or three years ago and there were some new additions. Just before we left for the restaurant, the Texas Tradition, in nearby Katy, the lights came on allowing visitors to not only get a better look at the cars but also the hundreds of neon auto related signs in the collection.

Speaking of the Texas Tradition, I don't think I have ever had a better hamburger than the one Carol and I shared for lunch on their homemade bun! Karen and Rich had arranged for us to eat there once before but it may have been close to ten years ago. We will have to go back.

We welcomed new member, Tom Drisdale, and his son to their first LSP meeting. Tom is an old friend of mine from elementary through high school. He got interested in Packards by looking at our pictures on Face book. Actually, he has a little bit of history with Studebaker/Packard, as his grandfather was an executive at Mozart and Keller Studebaker in downtown Houston. They added Packard to their showroom floor in 1957 and 1958.

Tom found a 1940 110 Coupe in the Austin area Craig's List and snapped it up. It needs a little work but he is picking it up in a few days and we can expect to see it soon. I think it is very similar to Ben and Janice’s 1940.

We have yet another new Packard in our region! John and Lynn Eanes just purchased a 1954 Pacific hard top similar to the one they already have. I think John found it on the Los Angeles Craig's List and it is now home in Galveston. Interesting story - I guess a lot of folks had been bothering this elderly couple in an attempt to buy it really cheap and then flip the car for a profit. They were not very friendly until John told them he was a member of the Lone Star Packard Region and wanted the car to keep. I guess it pays to be recognized as a member of LSP! We look forward to seeing this new car.

I encourage both Tom and John to get a picture of their new cars to Doug for the Website so everyone can see them.

At this time, we do not have plans finalized for the February meeting. It will likely be on our regular 3rd weekend and probably in the Clear Lake/League City area. As soon as we nail it down you will get a notice.