Jeepers Jam Downtown
An invasion was promised, and the Jeep lovers did not disappoint.
After the barricades went up on Friday afternoon it started as a trickle; then a flood.
By evening Main Street was buried beneath a sea of 1,000 Jeeps and awash with people who had come to admire them.
For the young and those interested in festival food and music, Main Street held everything from shopping opportunities to a Jeep driving simulator that put Michael Ramage of Connellsville, Pa., through his paces. The suspended seat and video display jerked and shook before pitching to the side, leaving the 14-year-old boy grinning wryly.
“It's hard,” he said.
But the evening's main attraction was parked every six inches along both sides of Main Street: Jeeps. For many the vehicles on display Friday night held fond memories or powerful emotional attachments.
Cindy Goodlick of Florence, Ky., and her brother, Wayne Vining of Chenoa, Ill., traveled to Butler to display an all-pink custom Jeep in memory of their sister, Chris Bissey, who died last year from breast cancer. Their family had never been Jeep people before Bissey's second battle with cancer — she beat it once, but it came back and metasticized to her brain — but now they have two.
The second, a 2009 JK 4-door, remains at home, but Goodlick said they wanted to visit Butler and bring their message of hope and awareness with them. Vining said they were stunned by Friday's invasion on Main Street.
“This is absolutely amazing,” he said. “All the Jeeps that are here; all the people. Absolutely incredible.”
Another first-timer was Jean Shank of Elizabethtown, Pa., and her husband, Glenn, who heard about the festival last year from a AAA booklet, and said they had vowed to attend this year. Shank's classic 1948 CJ2A Willy's, which she said still had all original components — including its tires and canvas top — had immediately started to make the couple new friends among visitors.
Shank said the Jeep is special to her because it belonged to her aunt, and she rode in it as a child. Shank can remember when it was the only vehicle the family had that was capable of making it through a tough winter storm.
“We got into that thing and just — boom — plowed through everything,” she said.
Edgar Maurer of Carrolltown, Pa., who along with his group of friends has come to all five previous Jeep heritage festivals in Butler, was back again on Friday, with a display of restored and original military Jeeps the group cares for in memory of his son, Devin Howard.
Howard was involved in an accident at age 12 and was later found to be suffering from a brain injury. At age 16 he took his own life, said Maurer's friend, Dave Horn.
Howard had always loved military Jeeps — he and his father had bought their first, a 1952 M38A1, at auction together when he was just a boy.
These days, the group and Maurer buy and restore military Jeeps in Devin's memory, and use the vehicles to help raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project and other charities. The group had four or five Jeep models on display Friday night, but Maurer said his favorite will always be the M38A1 he first bought with his son.
Coming from closer to home, Paul Paulovich and Carol Lavrinc of Indianola, Pa. — also members of a group which has been to every Jeep festival, were lounging on Main Street next to their Wranglers — a 2000 and a 2013. This year they opted to forego the Coopers Lake festivities, saying what they enjoyed most about the festival is the invasion's festival atmosphere.
“We come for this,” Paulovich said.
Lavrinc said she likes the festival's safe, friendly atmosphere most.
“Jeepers are friendly people,” she said. “There's no fights; there's no nothing. You get a bunch of people together who like the same thing, and it's peaceful.”
The sixth annual Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival continues today and Sunday with jeep-related events in Butler and at Coopers Lake Campground.
