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The SHELBY AMERICAN
We thought that our 40th Anniversary was appropriate to recognize the two club members who have attended
every SAAC convention since the very first one in 1976. Actually, there are probably more than two who have been
to each convention, but to sharpen the point, we expanded the requirement to include all three Shelby Owners
Association conventions (1973, 1974 and 1975). There were only two people who have attended all 43 conventions:
Jeff Burgy and Ken Young.We explained all this to everyone who attended the dinner program. At SAAC-10, which
we thought was a big deal, we presented the “All-Time Convention Attendance Award.” At that time, ten years re-
flected “all time” and no one could imagine SAAC conventions marching off to the horizon. The award we presented
was a hand-carved Cobra, about a foot high. It was cut down the middle and half was given to each recipient, with
instructions that if one of them missed a convention they would have to give their half to the other.
Thirty years later they each still had their half. We asked them to bring it to SAAC-40. We realized the com-
petition had to end now, or else the only way it would end was badly. One of the two would eventually miss a con-
vention because he would be pushing up daisies. Presenting the award to the eventual winner would not be a very
joyful occasion. We decided to present an award to each winner: an Apple Watch. It wouldn’t be the gold $17,000
model, of course. Burgy was as computer savvy as a twelve year-old from Cupertino. Young, not so much.
At the evening program, we invited Burgy and Young to come up to the
podium to receive their Apple watches. The thought of getting an Apple
watch made a techno-freak like Burgy thrilled to be on the cutting edge.
Young would have trouble using it just to tell the time, but he was, nonethe-
less, excited to get something like this for free. Their adrenalized excitement
lasted only as long as it took them to return to their seats and open their
white Apple boxes. Inside they found a $5 watch strapped to an apple. As
SAAC members for forty years, they really should have known better.
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