About
In 1983 the Harley-Davidson Motor Company established Harley Owners Group (H.O.G.) as a campaign to get Harley-Davidson owners more involved in the sport of motorcycling.
Initially H.O.G. was just a national organization. Eventually Harley reached out to dealerships to have a local H.O.G. organization as well to help take care of the growing desire by Harley riders for an organized way to share their passion and show their pride.
Our sponsoring dealership, Myers-Duren Harley-Davidson, had traditionally hosted rides with our customers for decades. The rides left from the dealership and most frequently went some place to eat or to an American Motorcycle Association (AMA) motorcycle race.
We decided “why not just turn our rides into H.O.G. rides?” Thus in late 1985 we applied for a local H.O.G. chapter membership. At that time there were not many chapters nationwide. We asked for Tulsa Harley Owners Group as our H.O.G. chapter name. Corporate Harley called us and said since there were two dealerships in Tulsa we could not be Tulsa H.O.G. We would either have to pick another name or be Tulsa Area #1 H.O.G. Chapter. At the time there were no other H.O.G. chapters in Oklahoma. We chose Tulsa Area #1. Our thinking was when we went to a national rally having Tulsa in our name told where we were from as opposed to something like the Golden Driller Chapter. We were granted chapter status on January 3, 1986. Johnny McClanahan was our first Chapter Director.
At one time when we ordered chapter patches we got them back with Tulsa Area No 1 instead of Tulsa Area #1. We didn’t like being the No one chapter so since then we have been careful to specify the pound sign in our orders. Therefore, this is the way our chapter name was chosen.
Reba McClanahan
Dealer Principal, Myers-Duren Harley-Davidson
