Trail Rider Magazine

cash receipts from membership renewals, NETRA newsle er ads, sanc on fees, event fees, sales of event supplies, sales of NETRA clothing, etc., scorekeeper for the NETRA compe ve events, and running the annual NETRA sanc on meet- ing. During that me Jerry put a huge amount of effort into NETRA and the sport of off-road motorcycling. In addi on to being the NETRA Ad- ministrator, he was a true enthusiast, compe tor and a great ambassador for our sport. Whenever I hear his name, the image of him riding with his denim shirt pops into my mind." Jim Sherman, previous NETRA president and current vice president, remembers Jerry. "It was always interes ng to go to Jerry's home where he maintained his NETRA office. Jerry's office was full of stuff in every nook and cranny. Jerry had anything and everything NETRA. He had race materials such as ribbons, name plates and numbers, scoring cards, etc. He maintained the inventory of NETRA items for sale such as T-shirts, sweatshirts, along with ar cles and publica ons about the history of motorcycling. There was box a er box of stuff. It was amazing he knew where everything was but he seemed to know how to find whatever he needed." Jerry was a Connec cut Ramblers member da ng back to 1976. He was a rather new member himself in the days of bikes with no long travel suspension. Jerry learned from old mers like Frank DeGray and Jesse Hills how the club worked and how to put together an event. Jerry and fellow rambler Rob Hansen were co-trail bosses of the first Black and Blue enduro circa 1977. When Jerry took over the administra on of NETRA, nothing was computerized and members' informa on was maintained using index cards. All scoring and promo on points were tallied by hand on ledger paper. It's safe to say Jerry was "old school". He wanted to do everything manually and had trouble adjus ng to computeriza on. He felt he could do a be er job manually than working on his computer to accomplish many tasks. But it's safe to say that without Jerry, his dedica on and hard work, especially in his early years as administrator, NETRA would have foundered. Jerry became very involved in trying to open up new riding areas which then turned around completely into a fight to preserve what areas we had. He acted as a mediator at a me when enduros and trail riding were the focus of NETRA and the idea of hare scrambles was new. Jerry kept NETRA together by ge ng the enduro guys to accept the hare scramble riders. His efforts helped to grow the NETRA membership and open up a new championship series. In recogni on of these lifelong efforts for off-road motorcycling, in 2014 Jerry received the Bren Moran award, NETRA's highest award. All of NETRA is familiar with Mar n Michalec, famous for opening up his land to decades of our events. Jerry gave an extremely hear elt speech for Mar n at an impromptu birthday celebra on when we held the hare scramble there in 2016 just prior to Mar n's passing that fall. Many of us say that if there is a herea er, Jerry and Mar n are there bench racing and looking to make things challenging for those of us to ride into the sunset with them some day! Ar cle Contributors: Jim Sherman, Kevin Howley, James Larabee, Peter James and Tony Gasper

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