.....Two years ago I won a 2006 black Harley Davidson Fatboy worth $21,500 in a drawing for a scholarship fund. Many people have told me I am the luckiest person they know, although I would say it has been more divine intervention than luck. There is an interesting story behind me being the lucky winner of the Harley Davidson raffled off to raise money for the NPGA scholarship fund. I have wanted a black Harley Davidson Fatboy for about 15 years now but never broke down and spent the money to buy one. My brother in law has had several Harleys and one day in the early 90’s I asked him what he would buy if he bought a brand new bike and he told he would get a black Fatboy just like the bike Arnold Swartzenegar rode in the movie Terminator 2. Since that day, that is the bike I decided to get if I ever got a Harley. I would get a black Fatboy. I’ve owned many different motocross bikes over the years, but never a street bike.
.....In 1996 my parents gave me $200 for Christmas, which was a lot of money to us and certainly more than the usual $20 I had received for so many Christmases. I asked my wife to open a savings account called Paul’s Harley Fund with the $200 and we would deposit $100 per month in it to begin saving for a bike one day. A few months later a business acquaintance named Lyle Rainey and his wife Rose decided to quit their jobs with DuFour Petroleum in Hattiesburg, MS and move to Belize to run a Christian vocational school to minister to, and teach young men and boys, various trade skills. Lyle was calling around to raise support so he and Rose could go on the mission field full time and he needed money to accomplish this, so I felt he needed the money more than I needed my Harley fund. I asked my wife to start sending the $100 per month to Lyle and we have been sending him something every month since instead of putting money in the Harley fund.
.....I needed a business credit card for one of the new businesses I had started in 1998 and Harley Davidson was offering this slick new card and they were going to give away a motorcycle every week for a year. I thought maybe this is how God wants me to have a Harley and I needed a credit card so I signed up. Well, after a couple of years I hadn’t won a Harley, but I had the money to purchase one because the business was doing well so I decided to put my name on the waiting list to order a Harley. That was about 2002, and a year later, I got a call from the Manager of Country’s HD in Rock Hill and my name was at the top of the list and he wanted me to come down and spec out the bike I wanted and it would arrive in about a month. I didn’t feel God wanted me to spend $20,000 on a bike so I asked him to give my spot to the next person on the list.
.....Trinity Industries manufactures propane storage tanks and has a very nice booth at the annual propane convention in Atlanta each spring. Melinda had never been to the convention so in 2004 she decided to go with me. Trinity is headquartered in Dallas, TX and for many years had brought a few Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders to the convention to attract attention to their booth. Well, Melinda really gave our friend and Trinity employee John Geiger a hard time about the cheerleaders in their skimpy outfits. Apparently, Trinity agreed it was time to do something different and so in 2005 they brought a beautiful burgundy Road King Classic to the show and raffled it off to raise money for a scholarship fund. John Geiger had told me about this before hand so I made sure I brought a check with me (I don’t carry much cash). I donated $100 and just knew that might be my bike. The drawing was to be held at 3 pm on Monday but my phone never rang. I would later find out that someone in North Carolina was the lucky winner.
.....The next year (2006), Melinda and I were going on vacation for our first ever trip out west to see the Grand Canyon and I would have to leave the convention after the first day. In all of the preparations to go on vacation, I forgot to take a check to the convention for the Trinity Harley raffle. The convention closed for the day at 5 pm and as I was hurrying out the door at 4:45 I realized I hadn’t donated to the raffle and didn’t have a check with me. I had NEVER used an ATM machine that wasn’t at my bank so as to avoid withdrawal fees but something told me that I really needed to. I quickly found an ATM in the lobby and paid a $2.95 fee to withdraw $100 and rushed back into the convention just before they closed the doors. I got 5 tickets for the donation and crumpled each one up a bit and carefully directed one in each corner and dropped the last one right in the middle.
.....I rushed out of the convention to drive all the way back to Charleston that night and then catch a very early flight with Melinda the next morning to Phoenix, and we then drove up to Sedona, AZ where we were staying. The drawing for the Harley was at 3 pm the day we were traveling and I had completely forgotten about it. For some reason my cell phone picked up service at about 5 am the next day and rang to alert me that I had a voice message. When I checked the message, it was John Geiger congratulating me for winning the motorcycle. Melinda and I would spend the rest of the morning faxing the necessary documents back and forth with Trinity to accept ownership of a 2006 black Fatboy and it was then I found out that Trinity had spent a total of $21,500 on the bike including about $3,000 in extra accessories. I didn’t get to pick out what I wanted, Trinity had this bike customized at Cowboy Harley Davidson in Beaumont, TX, specially made for the convention, and it just happened to be a black Fatboy, just what I had always wanted.
.....I had actually forgotten about the Harley Fund until Melinda reminded me later that day as we were reminiscing about the events that led up to this, that she had been keeping the savings account active with 1 dollar per year. Melinda and I would spend the rest of the week driving around Arizona buying HD stuff to mail back to all our friends that had motorcycles. It was a great week in Arizona, but I couldn’t wait to get home and take delivery of the bike. Keep in mind that the reason Trinity quit bringing the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders to the convention and decided to start raffling off a Harley was because Melinda had pointed out to them in her not so subtle way that the skimpy outfits on the convention floor were a bit much in this day and age. Had she not done that, Trinity wouldn’t have decided to use Harley’s to attract attention that ultimately led to me winning one. Ironic isn’t it?

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