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Patriot Guard Riders Mission Statement
Notice - The PGR store is open since the first of the new year.
Thank you for your patience.
The Patriot Guard Riders is a diverse amalgamation of riders from across the nation. We have one thing in common besides motorcycles. We have an unwavering respect for those who risk their very lives for America’s freedom and security. If you share this respect, please join us.
We don’t care what you ride, what your political views are, or whether you’re a "hawk" or a "dove". It is not a requirement that you be a veteran. It doesn't matter where you’re from or what your income is. You don’t even have to ride. The only prerequisite is Respect.
Our main mission is to attend the funeral services of fallen American heroes as invited guests of the family. Each mission we undertake has two basic objectives.
1. Show our sincere respect for our fallen heroes, their families, and their communities.
2. Shield the mourning family and friends from interruptions created by any protestor or group of protestors.
We accomplish the latter through strictly legal and non-violent means.
Folks, this is not just important…
It’s what we do!
Join Us!
RD - SE Missouri Ride Captain
Arizona State H.O.G. Rally
posted Monday, 30 April 2007
OTHERS JUMPING ON THE HOGWAGON
Downtown going hog wild over Harley rally
Motorcycle owners may spend $1M here
Tucson AZ -- Upward of 1,500 Harley-Davidson motorcycles and their well-off owners are rolling into the center of the city for three days leading into Cinco de Mayo. How enthusiastic are downtown merchants about the Arizona State H.O.G. Rally?
As soon as a reporter mentioned the event, Café à La C'ART owner Judith Michelet launched into a recitation of the rally's virtues before a question was even asked.
"It's a sound, concentrated effort of downtown merchants who are really bonding together to make these people come back on a yearly basis," Michelet said.
For her part, she will have Café à La C'ART, 150 N. Main Ave., open Saturday. Usually, Michelet opens her eatery next to the Tucson Museum of Art only twice a year on Saturday for the museum's craft fairs.
"Smaller merchants, we have to do our share to get the ball rolling downtown," Michelet said.
Hydra Leather & More, an alternative clothing and leather boutique at 145 E. Congress St. ("not really a fetish shop, not really a sex shop"), will have live models in its windows and in front of the store during the rally, owner Margo Susco said.
"This is very much a group right in my demographic," Susco said. "In my 13 years in downtown, this is probably the first event I've seen everybody get behind. This is exactly what we need to be doing."
Michelet and Susco are among 90 merchants willing to spend $47 each for a page in a coupon book assembled especially for the Arizona Harley riders. At the suggestion of some of the group's southern Arizona members, the rally will be in Tucson for the first time after rallies in Williams the past seven years. The Harley-Davidson rally will fill downtown Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The Harley owners will eat and sleep here, perform charity walks, hold Bike Games in the Tucson Arena, and - perhaps as a surprise to them - see motorcycles and historic photos of motorcycles on display at the Tucson Museum of Art, 140 N. Main Ave., and the downtown branch of the Arizona Historical Society's museum, 140 N. Stone Ave.
They'll also ride in a parade around downtown Saturday beginning at 4 p.m. It's the last item on the rally agenda.
What do city leaders think about having 1,500 Harley-Davidsons roaring downtown?
Take a guess: City Manager Mike Hein owns a Harley as does Robert Knight, executive director of the Tucson Museum of Art. Gary Hayes, executive director of the Pima Association of Governments, owns two hogs, one a Harley-Davidson Softail Deluxe that Mayor Bob Walkup, an avid motorcyclist, will borrow to lead the parade and an excursion to Tubac.
City officials and downtown merchants recognize two things: Harley owners are not your typical wild bikers and they are expected to spend $1 million during their three-day stay in Tucson, said Donovan Durband, executive director of the Tucson Downtown Alliance.
"It's people coming to downtown who have disposable income who are predisposed to spend it because they are on minivacation," Durband said.
By coincidence, the Harley Owners Group rally, mostly based around the Tucson Convention Center, will fill downtown the same weekend as the Tucson Folk Festival at El Presidio Park.
The Tucson Downtown Alliance has drawn downtown merchants and museums together to create a "Tucson Thunder" theme for the weekend. It combines the roar of motorcycles with the melodious folk festival.
The Tucson Folk Festival and Tucson Downtown Alliance are cross-promoting both events on their Web sites.
The Tucson Museum of Art will display a series of motorcycle photographs shot here in the 1980s by Ann Simmons-Myers, who showed them as a traveling exhibition in the 1990s. It will be the first exhibition of them in Tucson.
A preview of the Bikers exhibit will be held Friday through Sunday to coincide with the rally. It opens officially May 19 and will run through Aug. 5.
The eight or so motorcycles displayed at the museum will remain in the gallery only Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
"Both Robert (Knight) and I were called by the Downtown Alliance," said Meredith Hayes, the museum's marketing director. "We like to be very involved in all kinds of things going on downtown. We were just really fortunate to come across these photos."
Motorcycles at an art museum? Why not? Hayes asked.
"When Harley-Davidson had its 100th anniversary in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Art Museum had a big exhibit on motorcycles," she said.
The downtown branch of the Arizona Historical Society is providing a historical look at motorcycles with photographs from 1915 to 1930. About a dozen will be enlarged to poster size.
Also, 2002 Harley-Davidson Firefighter Special Edition bikes will be on display, as well as a quilt made with 60 T-shirts from motorcycle rallies across the country, said Jim Bleess, the museum's site curator.
"We heard that the biker rally was coming," Bleess said. "The museum was in the spirit of the event. We all think it's a feather in everybody's cap to make everybody welcome."
Especially welcoming will be the Hotel Arizona, the rally's official host hotel, even though only a fraction of the riders will fit into its 312 rooms. The hotel, at 181 W. Broadway, will be sold out at a time of year when it's normally half-empty, marketing director Bob Stamp said.
"For well over a year, I've been trying to bring these type of events downtown," Stamp said. "These are people who are doctors and lawyers. These are people who have money."
The Hotel Arizona worked closely with the downtown alliance, the Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Tucson Convention Center to land the H.O.G. rally.
A ceremony at TCC had to be moved to another hall to free the Tucson Arena for the motorcyclists, who will park their cycles in the plaza between the TCC and the Tucson Music Hall.
Cinema La Placita, the weekly outdoor movie screening at La Placita Village, will pay homage to the motorcycle with a screening of "The Wild One," starring Marlon Brando, at its season-opening showing at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.
Even Roundabout Music Theatre is in the spirit of the H.O.G. rally, offering a production of the musical "Pump Boys and Dinettes" at the Leo Rich Theater from Thursday to Sunday, with discount tickets available for registered rally participants.
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