Sunday, Oct. 12th. was a gorgeous fall day in Northeast Ohio as the Rotary Club of Burton-Middlefield (BMR) hosted their 6th. annual Jeep Invasion. The event is held yearly at the Mayfield Rd. drive-in theater and was attended this year by over 100 Jeep Wranglers of all sizes, shapes and levels of decoration. This is a fun event where Jeep owners congregate to look over each others vehicles and just talk “Jeep”. Entrants pay a fee to enter for a two hour get together followed by a two hour tour of Geauga County. When the tour started 105 Jeeps followed Sheriff Scott Hildenbrand through central Geauga County. Special trips were made on a short portion of the Maple Highlands Trail and over one of the beautiful covered bridges. Back on regular roads they went to the Best Sand Production pit off Rt. 44 south of Chardon. This was truly a rare opportunity to experience a real local phenomenon that most of us have driven past hundreds of times but never got a close look at the actual pit. Best Sand employees were on hand to show off their monstrous mining machines and wave to the Jeepers. Each Jeep participant remarked that it was the highlight of the tour. A huge thank you to the Best Sand owners for this opportunity. Also a big thank you to the Geauga Parks for the use of the small portion of the Maple Highlands Trail and our apologies to any hikers and bikers that may have been inconvenienced for a few minutes.
Event chair Rotarian Andrew Pleso from Junction Auto and his small staff and vice chair County Commissioner Jim Dvorak put this entire event together and made it a complete success. Profits from the show go to help Geauga County Veterans with any needs they may have. This year over $12,000 was raised. Thanks to major sponsor Junction Auto Family and the dozens of other sponsors that contribute for the good of Geauga County Veterans. The event continues to grow in popularity each year and BMR is proud to be a generous helper to Geauga veterans. A big thanks to Rotary District Governor Bob Oborn and his wife Annette for attending and also for the help of Past District Governor Dale Smith who joined the BMR team and many volunteers. We also want to thank VFW post 459 for presenting the color guard ceremony to begin the event. It was a pleasure to take part in an all American non-political fun day. We hope the jeepers enjoyed it and will join us next year at the 7th. Jeep Invasion.
Robert Johnson, PDG
Secretary, BMR
