GOTEM Returns

Mar. 31—GREENUP — Mike Wheeler grew up in Greenup County plowing gardens for his neighbors with an old Ford Tractor.

John Warnock grew up on a farm in Greenup — he's always had a soft spot for the Alliss-Chambers, after his daddy had one delivered to the farm on Warnock's 5th birthday.

And Dan Howell, he grew up on a dairy farm — if you ask him, it's International or get the heck out.

Each of these men — and many more out there — at some point was bitten by the tractor bug.

For Wheeler, it started after taking his son to the Greenup County Tractor Show, which kicks off alongside Old Fashion Days. The boy got a kick out of it so much, both father and son contracted tractor fever.

They got an old tractor and fixed it up. From there, they've been trading up tractors like old cow hands did with horses back in the day.

While nostalgia was certainly a part of the allure surrounding tractors, cost was definitely another factor.

"It's cheaper than restoring cars, I can tell you that much," Wheeler said. "You can get one looking good and running good for a fraction of the cost."

"Heck, I bought two — one to rebuild and one for parts," Warnock said.

The thing to look out for, Warnock and Wheeler said, is the tires. If the tires are rotted, that's a huge expense to replace. Old tractors — like the Fords and the Internationals and the John Deeres from the '30s, '40s and '50s — were built to last.

They've seen tractors left out in the field to rust. But with a bit of elbow grease, they were stripped like new, with no real damage to the frame.

"Back then, they built them too strong and thick and heavy," Warnock said. "I've seen tractors out in Michigan that sat in the open for 30 years and it was pretty much just surface rust."

And these men have found a lot of company in Greenup County and that company has a name — and no, it's not the old man brigade at the U.S. 23 McDonald's (though I imagine there's likely some overlap).

It's the Greenup Old Tractors, Engines and Machinery Club (GOTEM).

Meeting on the third Tuesday of each month (Howell said you don't even need to own a tractor to attend), the club is dedicated to sharing the joys of tinkering and mechanic work, of making old tractors run again.

There's two crown jewels for the yearly calendar — the Greenup County Fair and the Greenup County Tractor Show.

For the last 15 years, Jim Bob with the tractor club has designed the headline event for Saturday night — the great lawnmower race.

As Jim Bob put it, the fair was about to go under when the guys at the tractor club got the idea of switching around the belts on junk lawnmowers and running them in a race.

"It's a hillbillly sport, it doesn't cost much at all," he said. "If you put more than a $100, maybe $200 into it, you've spent way too much."

With mowers that can reach up to 60 mph (with no suspension to speak of), Jim Bob said he's had folks from 18 to 85 run in the races, trading paint and talking trash.

At the end, they hand out a homemade trophy of old pistons and wrenches welded together.

The tractor show, which is the last weekend of September, has grown from a handful of local entries 23 years ago to about 240 last year.

Entering its 23rd year, (like many festivals, it, too, saw a hiatus in 2020), the Greenup County tractor show has become a massive event, shepherding in 5,000 to 10,000 spectators, with tractors coming from across the South and the Mid-West to be shown off.

The guys at the tractor club said they run 120 pounds of soup beans during the event, and have been able to to raise scholarships for students intending to go vocational school.

It doesn't matter — rain, sleet or shine — they'll have the show, they said.

(606) 326-2653 — henry@dailyindependent.com