HOG WILD?; HARLEY OWNERS GROUP: PUBLIC PERCEPTION MISLEADING

Ivan and Helen Underwood led a pack of 75 motorcycles through Cape Girardeau during the SEMO Harley Owners Group Toy Run in December, 1995. H.O.G. and other local motorcycle clubs collected more than $1,000 in toys and food to be doanted to the Cape Girardeau Safe House for Women.

Members of the SEMO Harley Owners Group posed for a photo a the H.O.G. Ralley at Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

"I grew up in the time of Marlon Brando, but I was never one to go around beating people up," laughs Sonny Minor.

Still, the image he projects, wearing black leather and riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle might make uninitiated think otherwise.

And when he travels down the highway with other members of the local Harley Owners Group, most of them similarly clad and riding Harleys, engines roaring, the old stereotypes seem enhanced.

But, Minor, who is both a member and the sponsor of the motorcycle club's local chapter, says the public perception of the group is misleading.

They are not like the leather-clad ruffians of Brando's "The Wild Ones," riding into town in clouds of dust and roars of engines, there to wreck havoc on a community.

They are ordinary people who have ordinary jobs, some of them as doctors, dentists, lawyers, teachers.

The one thing they have in common with Brando is their love of the open road on a motorcycle.

The Harley Owners Group -- known most commonly by its acronym HOG -- was established in 1983 in Milwaukee. By the end of their first year, the group number about 33,000. In its 15 year history it has grown to over 370,000 members worldwide.

The Cape Girardeau chapter, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, is almost as old as the international group and boasts 114 members from throughout Southeast Missouri and southern Illinois and even from Kentucky and Tennessee.

Each local chapter must be sponsored by an authorized Harley-Davidson dealership, like Minor's Harley-Davidson in Cape Girardeau, and a person must own a Harley to become a member.

It is that ownership of the motorcycles and the love of riding that brings the members together.

Ken and Pat Jenkins of Cape Girardeau have been members of the local chapter since they returned to the road in 1992.

"We started riding motorcycles together after we first got married," Pat said.

But after they had two sons, they found it increasingly difficult to ride and raise the boys. Only after their youngest son graduated from college did they purchase a Harley and start riding again.

Since that time they have owned three Harleys. One of them, which they purchased in April 1995, had more than 25,000 miles on its odometer when they sold it earlier this year thanks to several long road trips, including one which took them all the way to California.

Riding has even become a focal point of the group's charitable work. And they participate in a lot of charitable work.

Each year the local chapter, along with international organization donates time and money to the Muscular Dystrophy Association through several motorcycle-related fund raisers.

The local HOG club holds an annual Poker Run in which bikers from the club as well as other clubs from the area and beyond take to the road, donating money to the MDA for the chance to ride their bikes sometimes up to a hundred miles. Last year, nearly 100 riders helped them to raise about $1,300.

Around Christmas each year, motorcyclists participate in a Toy Run where every person participating donates a canned good for FISH and a toy for the Toybox.

"Everything we do, we try to include something that will benefit the community," Minor said.

And the leather clothing?

"To keep warm and to protect ourselves," Minor said. "It gets cold out there sometimes."