NVAO Members,
Wayne Worden, the NVAR Chaplain, forwarded the news that Neil Fergus has died.
Those of you who had dinner at Sweetpea’s in Auburn, CA this past May at the start of the 2025 National Veterans Awareness Ride, had the opportunity to meet Neil and see Wayne present a special, NVAR Certificate of Appreciation to him (attached is a photo of Neil holding the framed certificate.) Wayne told us that he talked with Neil’s son and daughter a couple days after he died and they told him that their dad was very appreciative and proud of the NVAR Certificate that was given to him. In fact, the Certificate was on display at Neil’s memorial service.
An attached mini-bio of Neil states, Neil was a motorcycle MP in the Army during the Korean War. a Motor Officer in Pasadena, CA in the late 1950’s, He owned a Honda dealership in the 1960’s, raced motorcycles in the desert in the 60’s and rode his bike every day, right up to the week that he died at the age of 95.
A couple years ago he was featured in a story in American Motorcyclist magazine (attached is a photo of the cover of that issue). In the October 2025 issue of American Motorcyclist, there was a tribute editorial written about Neil (attached is the editorial).
He was quite a guy and the National Veterans Awareness Riders were fortunate to get to meet him and, thanks to Wayne Worden, we were proud to award him a special Certificate of Appreciation.
Thank you, Wayne
In separate news, we are busy preparing for the 2026 NVAR. Debi Crawford, The Queen of NVAR Motels, has completed arranging for the necessary blocks of rooms all across the country. We will announce to you when the motel schedule is on the NVAO website (nvao.us) and you can begin making your reservations. The State Coordinators are busy putting together the 2026 NVAR Ride Schedules for their states. Again, we’ll notify you when the entire Ride Schedule in on the website. We’ve got the shirt design for the 2026 NVAR and Buzz Neeb will soon be going to the printing company to produce the ride shirts. He’ll also be working with the pin company to design and produce the Ride Pins that we present to the Veterans in the VA facilities and to everyone who helps us accomplish our mission.
Thats it for now,
Be careful out there.
The NVAO Board of Directors
