HEADLIGHT Someone You Should Know

SOMEONE YOU SHOULD KNOW

By Bill Wiegand #180584

MY FIRST JOB OUT OF COLLEGE WAS WITH A SMALL, 40,000 CIRCULATION

daily newspaper in northern Illinois. I often look back at my days there and wonder how that led me to where I am today. While impossible to see its impact then, the experience gained at that first job would influence my vision of the world around me for years to come.

Herb was the managing editor when I started at the paper and had been for many years. About a year after I joined the staff, Herb retired yet still wanted to serve the community he loved and knew so well. Like anyone whose business it was to know what’s happening in the community, Herb knew a lot of people and had a lot of friends.

Following his retirement, Herb believed he still had unfinished business to take care of, and instead of fading away from the newspaper and community he loved, he began writing a bimonthly feature he titled “People You Should Know.” When Herb asked me to help him with these features, I couldn’t have been more excited, and over the next year we profiled former professional athletes, winemakers, restauranteurs, business owners and others. While all different in their chosen vocations, they were all members of the small community where we lived.

My days with that newspaper ended a long time ago, but Herb’s determination to make his community a better place is something I’ve never forgotten. I wish Herb was still around so I could tell him the impact he had on me. Writing the “Final Journey” article about Charlie Smith (page 84 of this issue) made me think of Herb.

Charlie Smith was born just east of Buffalo, New York, in the small town of Lyndonville. Like many of us, Charlie began riding as a teenager, and if I had to guess, I’d bet his mother didn’t approve. He enjoyed riding on the street as well as in the dirt, and his first BMW was a ’61 R 69. Over the years, many other BMWs found homes in Charlie’s garage, including an R 90/6, a K 75, an F 650 GS and an R 1200 GS, and those motorcycles carried him across the globe. According to Charlie’s daughter Debbie, her mother Ethel often said that when she married Charlie, she married his motorcycles, too! The riding season in western New York can be fleeting, so every chance he got, Charlie rode, often with Ethel or one of the kids.

Charlie was also an early member of the BMW Riders Association of Western New York and enjoyed the camaraderie and friendship of other BMW riders. With the desire to form a larger network of BMW riders, in 1972 along with four other BMW enthusiasts, he helped form what we now know as the BMW MOA.

Charlie served as the first editor of BMW News and as editor, was responsible for all phases of its production. Debbie fondly remembers their entire family gathered around their dining room table each month to fold, staple and stuff the newsletters into envelopes which they then addressed by hand. In addition to his work on the newsletter, Charlie was active in coordinating many local and national rallies. He was also an MOA Director and recipient of the MOA’s Distinguished Service Award.

I was lucky to have met Charlie a couple years ago at the National Rally in Des Moines. As I’m sure many others have over the years, I told him how thankful we all were for all of his work in laying the foundation of the great organization we know today.

Charlie Smith is someone we all should know.

Pastoral Beauty

Mark Janda #198513 found this idyllic rural scene in New York state while on a 9,200-mile ride from Phoenix to Maine and back.