History of the Peach State Region
By Jay Friedman and former members Frank Lindauer, Jim Apt and Mike Posey
(Appeared in the August 1998 Issue of The Self Starter; updated by Doug Bailey in 2015)
The name of our regional group suggests an old car club covering an entire state and maybe more, but our beginnings were much more humble. The exact date of the founding of the Peach State Region is lost in the mists of history, but sometime in the late 1980s a meeting was called by several CLC members at Stone Mountain Park, a few miles east of Atlanta, Georgia. Invited were all Cadillac-LaSalle Club members listed in the CLC directory with addresses in Georgia and nearby areas of surrounding states. The turnout was impressive; there were about 25 cars from the ’30s to the ’90s and lots of tires kicked and lies told, as well as enthusiastic talk of starting a new regional group. But as anyone who has tried to get one going must know, a critical mass has to build up before a new regional group will take off. [Since this was written several CLC regions have been sanctioned then withdrawn due to lack of momentum. – Doug]
Over the next few years several more meetings were held to no avail, but finally in 1992 six die-hard CLC members met at a local restoration shop and decided to really and truly organize a provisional regional group. Those founding members and their Cadillacs were Mike Smith (’41 coupe), Alan Lease (’57 Eldo Brougham), Frank Lindauer (’49 four-door), Mike Posey (’75 Eldo Convertible), Jay Friedman (’49 coupe) and last, but certainly not least, Art Gardner (’55 Fleetwood).
Art was the spark plug we needed, as he got things going in earnest. His first act was to more or less appoint himself Director (without opposition). Then, with his fine sense of organization and leadership skills (he's a lawyer), Art finally got the critical mass of new members and enjoyable activities going in the right direction. At first we were the provisional South-Eastern Region of the CLC. We later decided to scale back our ambitions and renamed ourselves the Peach State Region. CLC made us a full regional group of the CLC in 1993. So much for history, as most other regional groups must have started out similarly.
Art and his successor, Eric Westphal (’49 coupe), were great presidents. But the heart and soul of any regional group are its newsletter and its activities, which means, naturally, that the most essential members are the Newsletter Editor and the Activities Chairperson.
The Peach State Region was lucky to have Frank Lindauer as the founding editor and publisher of our newsletter, The Tail Fin. Frank remained in this post until the end of 1997, during which time he developed the TF into one of the finer examples of the genre. His successor Bill Barnard (’69 Hearse, or Commercial Car) carried on in the same tradition. Every Peach State member looked forward with anticipation to the unscheduled arrival of The Tail Fin, which appeared about nine times per year and, most appropriately, was printed on peach-colored paper. The Peach State Region has also been fortunate in having three outstanding Activities Chairpersons prior to 2000. The first was Mike Posey. Mike had a special knack for organizing old car events, as any CLCer who attended the April 1997 National Driving Tour to Savannah or the 1998 Blue Ridge National Driving Tour could attest.
Mike's first memorable event was an outing to the Atlanta Polo Club, which took place in September 1994, and which made the January 1995 cover of The Self-Starter. This event was organized along with Classic Cadillac, a local dealership which lends support to the Polo Club. Thirty-three cars from 1905 to 1995 participated, and we are still talking about it. Another great Posey-organized outing in 1995 was a treasure hunt and cross-country rally which ended up at the Whistle Stop Cafe in Juliette, Georgia, site of the filming of the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes".
Our great activity luck continued later that year when Mike became President and Chip Bryan took over the Activities Chairperson helm. Besides owning a ’58 Coupe De Ville and a ’67 De Ville convertible, Chip organized a number of great events, including a June 1997 outing to the Coker Tire Company in nearby Chattanooga, Tennessee. Besides seeing how tires for old cars were made in the historic Coker Building, which is in the National Register of Historic Sites, we had the privilege of being invited to see Mr. Coker's fabulous collection of old cars, including two Cadillacs: a ’28 dual-cowl phaeton and a ’55 Coupe De Ville.
In 1997 we had a number of events, which have included something for everyone by being balanced between visits to old car museums, restoration shops, and historic sites, as well as driving tours. Some of the places visited have been the historic Oakland Cemetery, a Civil War Battlefield and Stone Mountain Park. As a club we participated along with hundreds of other cars in the "Ride of the Century," a police-escorted tour through the heart of Atlanta, which was sponsored by local car dealers to commemorate 100 years of automobiling in Georgia. (This latter event was noteworthy in that Mike Posey got bumped from behind by a lowly Model T Ford.) Our crowning activity in 1997 was the aforementioned tour to Savannah, which was a CLC- sanctioned event and which made the cover of the August ’97 The Self-Starter.
The next Activities Director was Elinore Posey, Mike's mom. With that Posey flair for great events, she followed well in the footsteps of her predecessors. Elinore spent much of early 1998 organizing our Blue Ridge tour in May to the Appalachian regions of Georgia and North Carolina, which was a great success. The Blue Ridge tour opened at the Dillard House, a beautiful hotel in the Appalachians on the GA-NC state line, where almost 100 participants and 50 Cadillacs from 1930 to 1998 gathered for a kickoff cocktail party and blue grass jam session. The next day we convoyed to Dillsboro NC for a scenic ride on the Great Smokey Mountain Railway and then continued along the Blue Ridge Parkway to Mount Pisgah and Asheville. And then on the third day, in a supreme test for old Cadillacs, we proved we are indeed the Standard of the World by convoying up Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi. The tour itself then ended with a visit to Chimney Rock and a ride up the 26-floor elevator to the lookout, from where we could see our cars parked way below and from whence we had come the past two days. This was followed by a festive banquet that evening, where trophies and awards were presented for various honors, including people's choice and greatest distance travelled, ending with a good southern feast which was enjoyed by all.
Although the Peach State Region can't claim our appreciation of good food is unique among CLC regions, we do our share of feasting and rarely attend an old car outing without planning to fill our faces. Some of these feeding activities have become annual events. For example, our Christmas Party ties in with the announcements of results of election of club officers. We also had a wonderful Sunday morning brunch every January at the Officer's Club of Fort McPherson in Atlanta. Some members, it was rumored, considered that to be their final "pig out" of the year before carrying out any New Year's resolution to lose weight.
Another annual feed was a barbecue hosted by Mike Posey and his mom Elinore, on the lawn of their lovely house south of Atlanta. Known as a "Pig-Pickin Pork-Out," this event usually included members of other non-Cadillac old car clubs, which Peach State regulations do not permit us to name. The Posey’s ample lawn became a show field where guests could show off their cars, kick tires, tell lies, eat, drink and be merry, while being sure there was enough elbow room that no barbecue sauce splattered onto a stunning paint job.
The Peach State Region also maintained good relations with several Cadillac dealers in our area, who saw a definite advantage to having old Cadillacs visit their premises from time to time to help attract customers. Besides having informal shows in front of the dealership, Capital Cadillac invited us to use their conference room for club meetings.
Our club has never taken a poll of how many members do their own repairs and maintenance on their cars, but it must be a high percentage. Jim Sasser, owner of an inconspicuous bright red ’59 Coupe de Ville, is retired from the body shop of a non-Cadillac GM dealer and has painted several members’ cars. Alan Lease, a retired orthodontist [now deceased], applied similar techniques when tearing apart his ’57 Eldorado and other fine Cadillacs. [Alan’s Eldorado Brougham now resides at the CLC Museum in Hickory Corners, MI.] Past Membership Secretary Jay Friedman, while handy with a wrench, is best known for the quantity of ’49 Cadillac spare parts that he owns. Jay’s wife, Elaine, has assured the club that rumors of Jay keeping them in their living room are not entirely true. Jay is also known for having driven his ’49 to six Grand National meets in distant states since 1991 [still does] and for submitting sometimes harrowing trip reports on each of these experiences for publication in the Tail Fin.
Besides our energetic and active membership, a major reason for the success of the Peach State Region is our southern climate, which is known to be kind to old cars and their owners. We do not worry about salted roads and can drive and enjoy our cars year-round. Our roster is now at about 75 members [1998]; mostly from Georgia and surrounding states, but a few from places as far afield as Germany and even Pennsylvania. All Peach State members are looking forward to future Cadillac fun.
Over the next few years several more meetings were held to no avail, but finally in 1992 six die-hard CLC members met at a local restoration shop and decided to really and truly organize a provisional regional group. Those founding members and their Cadillacs were Mike Smith (’41 coupe), Alan Lease (’57 Eldo Brougham), Frank Lindauer (’49 four-door), Mike Posey (’75 Eldo Convertible), Jay Friedman (’49 coupe) and last, but certainly not least, Art Gardner (’55 Fleetwood).
Art was the spark plug we needed, as he got things going in earnest. His first act was to more or less appoint himself Director (without opposition). Then, with his fine sense of organization and leadership skills (he's a lawyer), Art finally got the critical mass of new members and enjoyable activities going in the right direction. At first we were the provisional South-Eastern Region of the CLC. We later decided to scale back our ambitions and renamed ourselves the Peach State Region. CLC made us a full regional group of the CLC in 1993. So much for history, as most other regional groups must have started out similarly.
Art and his successor, Eric Westphal (’49 coupe), were great presidents. But the heart and soul of any regional group are its newsletter and its activities, which means, naturally, that the most essential members are the Newsletter Editor and the Activities Chairperson.
The Peach State Region was lucky to have Frank Lindauer as the founding editor and publisher of our newsletter, The Tail Fin. Frank remained in this post until the end of 1997, during which time he developed the TF into one of the finer examples of the genre. His successor Bill Barnard (’69 Hearse, or Commercial Car) carried on in the same tradition. Every Peach State member looked forward with anticipation to the unscheduled arrival of The Tail Fin, which appeared about nine times per year and, most appropriately, was printed on peach-colored paper. The Peach State Region has also been fortunate in having three outstanding Activities Chairpersons prior to 2000. The first was Mike Posey. Mike had a special knack for organizing old car events, as any CLCer who attended the April 1997 National Driving Tour to Savannah or the 1998 Blue Ridge National Driving Tour could attest.
Mike's first memorable event was an outing to the Atlanta Polo Club, which took place in September 1994, and which made the January 1995 cover of The Self-Starter. This event was organized along with Classic Cadillac, a local dealership which lends support to the Polo Club. Thirty-three cars from 1905 to 1995 participated, and we are still talking about it. Another great Posey-organized outing in 1995 was a treasure hunt and cross-country rally which ended up at the Whistle Stop Cafe in Juliette, Georgia, site of the filming of the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes".
Our great activity luck continued later that year when Mike became President and Chip Bryan took over the Activities Chairperson helm. Besides owning a ’58 Coupe De Ville and a ’67 De Ville convertible, Chip organized a number of great events, including a June 1997 outing to the Coker Tire Company in nearby Chattanooga, Tennessee. Besides seeing how tires for old cars were made in the historic Coker Building, which is in the National Register of Historic Sites, we had the privilege of being invited to see Mr. Coker's fabulous collection of old cars, including two Cadillacs: a ’28 dual-cowl phaeton and a ’55 Coupe De Ville.
In 1997 we had a number of events, which have included something for everyone by being balanced between visits to old car museums, restoration shops, and historic sites, as well as driving tours. Some of the places visited have been the historic Oakland Cemetery, a Civil War Battlefield and Stone Mountain Park. As a club we participated along with hundreds of other cars in the "Ride of the Century," a police-escorted tour through the heart of Atlanta, which was sponsored by local car dealers to commemorate 100 years of automobiling in Georgia. (This latter event was noteworthy in that Mike Posey got bumped from behind by a lowly Model T Ford.) Our crowning activity in 1997 was the aforementioned tour to Savannah, which was a CLC- sanctioned event and which made the cover of the August ’97 The Self-Starter.
The next Activities Director was Elinore Posey, Mike's mom. With that Posey flair for great events, she followed well in the footsteps of her predecessors. Elinore spent much of early 1998 organizing our Blue Ridge tour in May to the Appalachian regions of Georgia and North Carolina, which was a great success. The Blue Ridge tour opened at the Dillard House, a beautiful hotel in the Appalachians on the GA-NC state line, where almost 100 participants and 50 Cadillacs from 1930 to 1998 gathered for a kickoff cocktail party and blue grass jam session. The next day we convoyed to Dillsboro NC for a scenic ride on the Great Smokey Mountain Railway and then continued along the Blue Ridge Parkway to Mount Pisgah and Asheville. And then on the third day, in a supreme test for old Cadillacs, we proved we are indeed the Standard of the World by convoying up Mount Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi. The tour itself then ended with a visit to Chimney Rock and a ride up the 26-floor elevator to the lookout, from where we could see our cars parked way below and from whence we had come the past two days. This was followed by a festive banquet that evening, where trophies and awards were presented for various honors, including people's choice and greatest distance travelled, ending with a good southern feast which was enjoyed by all.
Although the Peach State Region can't claim our appreciation of good food is unique among CLC regions, we do our share of feasting and rarely attend an old car outing without planning to fill our faces. Some of these feeding activities have become annual events. For example, our Christmas Party ties in with the announcements of results of election of club officers. We also had a wonderful Sunday morning brunch every January at the Officer's Club of Fort McPherson in Atlanta. Some members, it was rumored, considered that to be their final "pig out" of the year before carrying out any New Year's resolution to lose weight.
Another annual feed was a barbecue hosted by Mike Posey and his mom Elinore, on the lawn of their lovely house south of Atlanta. Known as a "Pig-Pickin Pork-Out," this event usually included members of other non-Cadillac old car clubs, which Peach State regulations do not permit us to name. The Posey’s ample lawn became a show field where guests could show off their cars, kick tires, tell lies, eat, drink and be merry, while being sure there was enough elbow room that no barbecue sauce splattered onto a stunning paint job.
The Peach State Region also maintained good relations with several Cadillac dealers in our area, who saw a definite advantage to having old Cadillacs visit their premises from time to time to help attract customers. Besides having informal shows in front of the dealership, Capital Cadillac invited us to use their conference room for club meetings.
Our club has never taken a poll of how many members do their own repairs and maintenance on their cars, but it must be a high percentage. Jim Sasser, owner of an inconspicuous bright red ’59 Coupe de Ville, is retired from the body shop of a non-Cadillac GM dealer and has painted several members’ cars. Alan Lease, a retired orthodontist [now deceased], applied similar techniques when tearing apart his ’57 Eldorado and other fine Cadillacs. [Alan’s Eldorado Brougham now resides at the CLC Museum in Hickory Corners, MI.] Past Membership Secretary Jay Friedman, while handy with a wrench, is best known for the quantity of ’49 Cadillac spare parts that he owns. Jay’s wife, Elaine, has assured the club that rumors of Jay keeping them in their living room are not entirely true. Jay is also known for having driven his ’49 to six Grand National meets in distant states since 1991 [still does] and for submitting sometimes harrowing trip reports on each of these experiences for publication in the Tail Fin.
Besides our energetic and active membership, a major reason for the success of the Peach State Region is our southern climate, which is known to be kind to old cars and their owners. We do not worry about salted roads and can drive and enjoy our cars year-round. Our roster is now at about 75 members [1998]; mostly from Georgia and surrounding states, but a few from places as far afield as Germany and even Pennsylvania. All Peach State members are looking forward to future Cadillac fun.
2019 UPDATES:
In 2017 Peach State CLC was awarded the 2016 Norm Uhlir Award for Most Active Region! We received another write-up in The Self-Starter for this award, for which we are very proud. This makes us arguably the best danged region in the 6400-member international CLC!
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In August 2017 the CLC awarded us the Website of Excellence Award! Our web master, Sandy Barth, received the coveted award after setting the bar high for any other regions of the CLC. As you can see by browsing around this site, Sandy has done some marvelous design work. And the site is VERY useful for tracking upcoming events, explaining to recruits what our club is all about, and keeping the past events well documented in write-ups and photos.
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2015 UPDATES: Since this history was written in 1998 there have been a number of significant events and traditions developed within the Peach State CLC region. Mike Posey continued to serve as president through 2007, when Peach State hosted the Grand Nationals in Savannah. This was a high water mark for the club up until that point, placing Peach State CLC squarely on the “map” among the CLC regions in the U. S. At that point the Activities Director was Stan Tucker, owner at that time of a ’60 Series 62 convertible. The Membership Director and TAILFIN editor was Elizabeth Boggs – the protector of the beloved PEACH-papered black-and-white newsletter. It was worthy of a national Newsletter Award in 2002. Despite a monsoon most of the week of the Grand Nationals that year, most folks considered it to be a great success. There was a terrific turnout, and Savannah is one of the most recognized travel destinations in the country. Ghost tours, River Street, and a visit to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum were among the highlights of that major event. It was hectic behind the scenes (I am told), and lots of frantic late-night hours went into the preparations and conduct of the meet. Principle players in that behind-the-scenes effort included Stan, Martina and Frank Butler, Jack McClow, Sandy Partridge, and Lewis Schwartz. The club did well, and earned a reputation as “serious players” among the cognoscenti of the CLC.
Soon after the ’07 Grand Nationals Mike Posey tendered his resignation. Stan Tucker became the new president, and found his dream car, the “Godfather,” his Preservation Award-winning 1956 Fleetwood Sixty Special. Stan brought the experience of a creative Activities Director to the leadership role. During his tenure, in the able hands of Lee and Mary Jean Dunn (the new Activities Directors) the club did even more driving tours, including a fabulous return trip to Chattanooga (Stan’s old haunt) for visits to the Chickamauga Battlefield, Rock City, Missionary Ridge, and the Coker headquarters and museum. We were invited to join Harold Coker, their founder, in a caravan to his home in Cleveland, TN. There he made us coffee and showed us around his private collection of brass-era Thomas Flyers and steam cars.
In ’07 Stan recruited a new Membership Director, Doug Bailey, to take over for Elizabeth Boggs, who was retiring. Doug came from the ranks of the relatively new members, having joined the Peach State region to learn how to find his dream car. By 2005 he had found his “dream Cadillac,” the ’58 extended deck sedan he calls “the Turk.” Hooked by the Savannah experience, Doug took on membership recruitment with the zeal of the “newbie.” Combined with all the great activities, the club grew remarkably well over the ensuing years, annually adding to the numbers even as some members “moved on.”
A scan of the 2008 membership roster reveals an unavoidable truth: Although our cars seem to carry on for decades serving several owners honorably – we owners are steadily aging out of the hobby. Of the 100+ members listed in ’08, nearly half have moved on: A number of cherished, active members have passed away each year. Others find they cannot maintain their activity level or they pass their Cadillacs on to younger hobbyists. In general it seems we lose around eight members a year to retirement from the hobby or to that Cadillac graveyard in the sky. Harsh to think that we won’t be able to keep crawling under our cars forever, let alone drive them into the sunset… but facts are facts. Enjoy your car now, while you still can! And pass the word, because it takes eight or ten new members each and every year to stay in growth mode!
Our club moved into the 21st Century by converting to electronic communications in a big way. Lewis Schwartz designed and created a new web site, and began publishing updates there – including our new activities schedules and contact information for club officers. (We received the CLC Web Site Merit Award in 2013.) Doug started up an ACCESS database to keep better track of memberships and renewals, and began an earnest attempt to reach out to current CLC members who were not enrolled in Peach State. He also took over the editing chores for the TAILFIN, converting it to an MS Publisher format in full color, and publishing quarterly.
In 2010 Peach State took its rightful place among the Georgia regions of the Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac clubs and hosted its first-ever BOPC Show. It was fun, and a great success. We followed that up with an even better and bigger BOPC show in May 2014. And we will do it all over again in 2018. Member Bill Greene got us invited to the downtown Tucker cruise-ins starting in 2010 – as he converted from his beloved Fords to Cadillac he dragged his Ford buddies into the fold. Now we are a special attraction, lined up down the center of the street every June. While we are in Tucker we often stop by Chip Cofer’s collection to spend time in the presence of majesty: the Thirties classics from Cadillac, Duesenberg, and Packard. We are putting the rush on to get Chip's curator, Cecil McCall, to join our club. He drives and maintains at least three classic Cadillacs for the Cofers: a 1914 touring car, a '31 seven-passenger phaeton, and a '32 Fleetwood. The collection also contains two Duesenbergs, '35 SJ and a '35 Model J that used to belong to Mrs. John Jacob Astor (widowed by the Titanic disaster. http://www.thecofercollection.com
Editor Emerson Duke produced six TAILFINs a year between ’10 and ’11, using contributions from throughout the club. In 2010 Jay Friedman won the prestigious CLC Author of the Year Award for his library of technical and travel articles for The Self Starter. We have several other members who have contributed to The Self Starter, as well. We started a very popular activity in 2011: Our quarterly Cadillac Clinics engaged from ten to 15 members in coffee and donuts while a handful worked on a few cars. Host Bob Winchell opened his shop and lifts to us for Sunday afternoons in decent weather. After five years of this Winch handed over the reins to Marty Pecora, owner of Cadillac of Lake Lanier in Gainesville. In 2011 member Dick Peden began hosting our annual Dave Comstock Chili Cook-off at his beautiful garage in Alpharetta. Surrounded by Dick’s nearly perfect collection of Fifties cruisers, we bring our special chilis for judging by Dave’s widow Marty – who knows better than anyone how much Dave loved chili.
In 2011 Peach State CLC was awarded the Norm Uhlir Award for Most Active Region! This traveling award contains brass plaques with the region’s name and its leader – and it was accepted at the 2012 Grand National by president Stan Tucker. We resumed the big, popular spring and fall driving tours about then too, heading 300-500 miles round trips in all directions. These are among our most popular events, and we have been acknowledged by CLC for them.
In 2012 we found new TAILFIN editors, Bill Rush and Sandy Barth – both professionals who spent countless unbilled hours polishing our club’s reputation and presentation. Unfortunately this labor of love was way too demanding for full-time pros: Bill had to “retire” in 2015. In 2016 Sandy developed our current web site, this is our 21st Century TAILFIN, and we are as proud of it as we have been of the first one Frank printed on peach stock. No prints! Sandy continues as our club secretary, and she is doing a fabulous job.
At the end of 2012 Stan Tucker retired from the president’s job to go do some REAL work, and prioritize his family. He has continued to serve us well as senior leadership, passing along his experience and sage advice. He continues with Frank Butler as our auctioneers for the annual memorabilia auction to benefit the club. Doug Bailey moved into the president’s role, along with a new board. Our entire board works with Activities Directors, Tom and Linda Di Nucci, to make sure all events are well planned and exciting, to keep current members engaged and to attract new ones. In 2014 Martina Butler, our steadying hand, stepped aside from the Secretary’s position in order to devote more time to travel, although she has continued as Peach State’s liaison with the CLC as a CLC board member. She travels largely at her own expense twice each year to attend national board meetings and to keep Peach State in good sted with the national board.
When Lee Dunn retired from serving as our Activities Director, Tom and Linda Di Nucci stepped in. With help from the Dunns the Di Nuccis have kept us BUSY for years now… and they promise to keep going for the near future! Sandy Partridge gave us a bonafide accountant in the treasurer’s role for several years, then sat out a year in 2015. Michelle Anderson stepped into the treasurer’s role in 2015 and has been a major force. She automated the books using her experience with QuickBooks, and revolutionized our ability to stay on top of membership renewals. Her software supports monthly notices as members hit their anniversaries. (We roll memberships on anniversary dates so that we don’t have to pro-rate memberships for those who join in mid-year.) Michelle has made the membership director’s job much easier, freeing that person for recruiting efforts. She also manages the expenses for our MANY fund raisers and special projects, such as logo apparel, driving tours, name badges and challenge coins, and the Lake Lanier Cadillac event where we raise money for veterans. Buster Miller served two great years as Membership Director, then retired in 2016. Sandy Partridge rolled back into that spot in 2016, and remains there. Annette and Ron Benneche served three years as Communications co-Directors, then rolled off the board in 2016. Lucille O’Neill took over the Communications role and has made it her own – if you get a birthday or anniversary wish on Facebook, that’s Lucille keeping track! Lucille also takes a huge burden off the president by helping to organize meetings and to follow up with members who lose loved ones or spend some time in the hospital. Sadly, we lost our good friend and vice president Kevin Garrison suddenly in late 2015... he continues to be deeply missed. Longtime member Mark Nichols assumed the position of Vice President, and is being groomed to take over when Doug wears out.
Soon after the ’07 Grand Nationals Mike Posey tendered his resignation. Stan Tucker became the new president, and found his dream car, the “Godfather,” his Preservation Award-winning 1956 Fleetwood Sixty Special. Stan brought the experience of a creative Activities Director to the leadership role. During his tenure, in the able hands of Lee and Mary Jean Dunn (the new Activities Directors) the club did even more driving tours, including a fabulous return trip to Chattanooga (Stan’s old haunt) for visits to the Chickamauga Battlefield, Rock City, Missionary Ridge, and the Coker headquarters and museum. We were invited to join Harold Coker, their founder, in a caravan to his home in Cleveland, TN. There he made us coffee and showed us around his private collection of brass-era Thomas Flyers and steam cars.
In ’07 Stan recruited a new Membership Director, Doug Bailey, to take over for Elizabeth Boggs, who was retiring. Doug came from the ranks of the relatively new members, having joined the Peach State region to learn how to find his dream car. By 2005 he had found his “dream Cadillac,” the ’58 extended deck sedan he calls “the Turk.” Hooked by the Savannah experience, Doug took on membership recruitment with the zeal of the “newbie.” Combined with all the great activities, the club grew remarkably well over the ensuing years, annually adding to the numbers even as some members “moved on.”
A scan of the 2008 membership roster reveals an unavoidable truth: Although our cars seem to carry on for decades serving several owners honorably – we owners are steadily aging out of the hobby. Of the 100+ members listed in ’08, nearly half have moved on: A number of cherished, active members have passed away each year. Others find they cannot maintain their activity level or they pass their Cadillacs on to younger hobbyists. In general it seems we lose around eight members a year to retirement from the hobby or to that Cadillac graveyard in the sky. Harsh to think that we won’t be able to keep crawling under our cars forever, let alone drive them into the sunset… but facts are facts. Enjoy your car now, while you still can! And pass the word, because it takes eight or ten new members each and every year to stay in growth mode!
Our club moved into the 21st Century by converting to electronic communications in a big way. Lewis Schwartz designed and created a new web site, and began publishing updates there – including our new activities schedules and contact information for club officers. (We received the CLC Web Site Merit Award in 2013.) Doug started up an ACCESS database to keep better track of memberships and renewals, and began an earnest attempt to reach out to current CLC members who were not enrolled in Peach State. He also took over the editing chores for the TAILFIN, converting it to an MS Publisher format in full color, and publishing quarterly.
In 2010 Peach State took its rightful place among the Georgia regions of the Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac clubs and hosted its first-ever BOPC Show. It was fun, and a great success. We followed that up with an even better and bigger BOPC show in May 2014. And we will do it all over again in 2018. Member Bill Greene got us invited to the downtown Tucker cruise-ins starting in 2010 – as he converted from his beloved Fords to Cadillac he dragged his Ford buddies into the fold. Now we are a special attraction, lined up down the center of the street every June. While we are in Tucker we often stop by Chip Cofer’s collection to spend time in the presence of majesty: the Thirties classics from Cadillac, Duesenberg, and Packard. We are putting the rush on to get Chip's curator, Cecil McCall, to join our club. He drives and maintains at least three classic Cadillacs for the Cofers: a 1914 touring car, a '31 seven-passenger phaeton, and a '32 Fleetwood. The collection also contains two Duesenbergs, '35 SJ and a '35 Model J that used to belong to Mrs. John Jacob Astor (widowed by the Titanic disaster. http://www.thecofercollection.com
Editor Emerson Duke produced six TAILFINs a year between ’10 and ’11, using contributions from throughout the club. In 2010 Jay Friedman won the prestigious CLC Author of the Year Award for his library of technical and travel articles for The Self Starter. We have several other members who have contributed to The Self Starter, as well. We started a very popular activity in 2011: Our quarterly Cadillac Clinics engaged from ten to 15 members in coffee and donuts while a handful worked on a few cars. Host Bob Winchell opened his shop and lifts to us for Sunday afternoons in decent weather. After five years of this Winch handed over the reins to Marty Pecora, owner of Cadillac of Lake Lanier in Gainesville. In 2011 member Dick Peden began hosting our annual Dave Comstock Chili Cook-off at his beautiful garage in Alpharetta. Surrounded by Dick’s nearly perfect collection of Fifties cruisers, we bring our special chilis for judging by Dave’s widow Marty – who knows better than anyone how much Dave loved chili.
In 2011 Peach State CLC was awarded the Norm Uhlir Award for Most Active Region! This traveling award contains brass plaques with the region’s name and its leader – and it was accepted at the 2012 Grand National by president Stan Tucker. We resumed the big, popular spring and fall driving tours about then too, heading 300-500 miles round trips in all directions. These are among our most popular events, and we have been acknowledged by CLC for them.
In 2012 we found new TAILFIN editors, Bill Rush and Sandy Barth – both professionals who spent countless unbilled hours polishing our club’s reputation and presentation. Unfortunately this labor of love was way too demanding for full-time pros: Bill had to “retire” in 2015. In 2016 Sandy developed our current web site, this is our 21st Century TAILFIN, and we are as proud of it as we have been of the first one Frank printed on peach stock. No prints! Sandy continues as our club secretary, and she is doing a fabulous job.
At the end of 2012 Stan Tucker retired from the president’s job to go do some REAL work, and prioritize his family. He has continued to serve us well as senior leadership, passing along his experience and sage advice. He continues with Frank Butler as our auctioneers for the annual memorabilia auction to benefit the club. Doug Bailey moved into the president’s role, along with a new board. Our entire board works with Activities Directors, Tom and Linda Di Nucci, to make sure all events are well planned and exciting, to keep current members engaged and to attract new ones. In 2014 Martina Butler, our steadying hand, stepped aside from the Secretary’s position in order to devote more time to travel, although she has continued as Peach State’s liaison with the CLC as a CLC board member. She travels largely at her own expense twice each year to attend national board meetings and to keep Peach State in good sted with the national board.
When Lee Dunn retired from serving as our Activities Director, Tom and Linda Di Nucci stepped in. With help from the Dunns the Di Nuccis have kept us BUSY for years now… and they promise to keep going for the near future! Sandy Partridge gave us a bonafide accountant in the treasurer’s role for several years, then sat out a year in 2015. Michelle Anderson stepped into the treasurer’s role in 2015 and has been a major force. She automated the books using her experience with QuickBooks, and revolutionized our ability to stay on top of membership renewals. Her software supports monthly notices as members hit their anniversaries. (We roll memberships on anniversary dates so that we don’t have to pro-rate memberships for those who join in mid-year.) Michelle has made the membership director’s job much easier, freeing that person for recruiting efforts. She also manages the expenses for our MANY fund raisers and special projects, such as logo apparel, driving tours, name badges and challenge coins, and the Lake Lanier Cadillac event where we raise money for veterans. Buster Miller served two great years as Membership Director, then retired in 2016. Sandy Partridge rolled back into that spot in 2016, and remains there. Annette and Ron Benneche served three years as Communications co-Directors, then rolled off the board in 2016. Lucille O’Neill took over the Communications role and has made it her own – if you get a birthday or anniversary wish on Facebook, that’s Lucille keeping track! Lucille also takes a huge burden off the president by helping to organize meetings and to follow up with members who lose loved ones or spend some time in the hospital. Sadly, we lost our good friend and vice president Kevin Garrison suddenly in late 2015... he continues to be deeply missed. Longtime member Mark Nichols assumed the position of Vice President, and is being groomed to take over when Doug wears out.
Founders & Leaders
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Founders and Past Presidents[1] of the Peach State Cadillac & LaSalle Club
FOUNDERS: In 1992 the founding members and their Cadillacs were:
[1] “THE PEACH STATE REGION.” Authored by various members, including Jay Friedman, Frank Lindauer, Jim Apt and Mike Posey. (Article appeared in the August 1998 Issue of The Self Starter.) |
PAST PRESIDENTS: Past Presidents active in the club are LIFE members of Peach State CLC...
Each year as part of the preparation for the Year-End Christmas Party, we circulate nominations for “Member of the Year.” Board members are not eligible, and that allows us to recognize those members who are active, but who have not yet volunteered to take on official board responsibility. Our ulterior motive? To draw these outstanding members deeper into leadership of the club, to build a line of succession for future board membership! So far, it has worked like a charm! 2011 - Kevin Garrison 2012 - Bob Winchell 2013 - Bob Hendershott 2014 - Bill Greene 2015 - Jay Friedman 2016 - Lewis Kelly 2017 - Dick Peden 2018 - Judy Winchell 2019 - Buster Miller 2020 - Sandy Partridge |
Learn about the national Cadillac & LaSalle Club
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Founded in 1958, the Cadillac & LaSalle Club was initially created to encourage enthusiasts to maintain, preserve, and restore collectible Cadillacs and LaSalles built from 1902-1942. Now the CLC recognizes all vehicles built by Cadillac. The CLC promotes the development, collection, publication and exchange of helpful information pertaining to our cars. They also promote social fellowship for club members. You can learn more about the founding and early history of the club in a PDF when you click here. To read more about the current organization, visit their website: http://www.cadillaclasalleclub.org/
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