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Hey, howdy, and welcome to the special edition of the Thrill Show from the Evel Knievel Museum. As our team diligently oversees the relocation of the museum from Topeka to its permanent home in Las Vegas, we have been meticulously reviewing extensive archival materials, historical records, and early footage. You know what moving is like. You touch everything, and everything brings back a memory. During this process, we rediscovered a video from 2017 featuring Mike Patterson, co-founder and principal of the museum, presenting at a Rotary Club of Topeka meeting. This is a significant moment in our own history, and when it popped up again, well, it's a jewel too dear not to share. I know that we're in between seasons right now. Season One was in Kansas, and Season Two is scheduled to begin in Nevada. But I just had to put this together as a special edition during the moving process. Keep in mind, this footage is not current, but it encapsulates an important moment from the museum's formative years, highlighting the vision, community support, and early efforts to preserve and present Evel Knievel's extraordinary legacy. We are pleased to share it with you in its entirety to offer valuable historical context on the dedication that has brought us to this exciting new chapter in Las Vegas. Be sure to subscribe so that you get notification when season two begins. Without further ado, here is the 2017 presentation by Mike Patterson It is not surprising that the Evel Knievel Museum would be in Kansas. Motorcycles have a long history of the state. Our speaker today is Mike Patterson, who is the third generation owner of Topeka's Harley-Davidson dealership. His grandfather, Henry Patterson, established the business in 1949. And it is now among the 10 oldest family owned dealerships in America. Mike's leadership as president included an official name change to a historic Harley Davidson reflecting the dealership's expertise in restoration. They currently restore motorcycles from all over the world and pride themselves in unparalleled customer service. Mike has a business administration degree from Kansas University. He and his wife Cathy, both natives of Topeka, have been married for 27 years. When Mike started working at his family's dealership more than 30 years ago, he never dreamed of building a museum. As he tells it, there are some things you just can't say no to. Through tireless work and dedication, the vision and collection, which began in 2013, grew into what they have today. Mike will update us on the world's one and only Evel Knievel Museum located here in the heart of the capital city. Please welcome Mike Patterson. Thank you Raymond. Hello everybody. I'm really excited to be here today to talk about the Evel Knievel Museum and just give you an idea of how it happened and. And why it's here and our exciting launch where we are going from here on. First I want to recognize a couple of people. One, Joanne Morell that's with me here today. Many of you know her. She is the energy and really the reason there's a children's Discovery Center here in Topeka and we brought her on early in our project to help consult with us. And she's been with us the whole way through. I want to recognize the Ramada. They've been a great supporter of ours since the museum's opened and been a great partner in welcoming tourists to Topeka. Our sponsors are also listed on your table. I would appreciate if you take a look at them because these are people that had vision with us and got behind our project. We really needed it. And it's been important to have and hopefully we can take care of them and have a long partnership with all of them. There's also somebody in the room that really, to be very honest, would not have happened if it weren't for him and his bank. Anderson Chandler, who's over here. Yes. Stand up please. And that applause is it's appropriate for many reasons, but Andy's been our banker for, 68 years, the whole time that my, when my grandfather started the business in 1949, we banked with Fidelity Bank and the Evel Knievel Museum would not be here without him and his team. There's just no doubt about it. So thank you, Andy, I'm glad you're here. I want to tell you and give you an answer to the question that's asked the very most of us when they come to the museum."Why is the museum in Topeka?" That's what we are going to talk about here for a little bit. But to talk about that, we have to go back to where my grandfather started the business in 1949. He was on Kansas Avenue and he was there for a little while until the Throop Hotel caught fire and crushed his building there on Kansas Avenue. So he moved out of town to Sixth and MacVicar, and started with a new building over there. Then a year later that was about 1951 and we all know what happened in 1951. So he got flooded. So the first two years here after he moved from Colorado were pretty tough. But he persevered and it's the reason I'm still here. We then moved up to Highway 24 in 1989 and we did we had 10 years there. until we needed to expand a little bit more and the opportunity came to buy the building on Topeka Boulevard, where we are currently at 21st of Topeka Boulevard. As Raymond said, we do restorations, and this is part of our history. One thing that makes us unique is we'll work on any year of Harley Davidson. We have developed a reputation for doing restorations and we do take care of people all over the country and have a lot of great clients. So we got a call from the family of Jerry Lee Lewis, the Rock and Roll Legend in 2013, and they wanted us to restore his bike. The bike would have been given to him in 1958 by the Harley Davidson Motor Company, and it had been taken completely apart. So we went to Memphis to pick it up and found it we had to dig through his garage in boxes and we brought it back in buckets. We spread it over the floor after we got it back, so we rebuilt the legend's motorcycle, and he was very happy about it. And there's the, yeah, that's the end result of it.. It went back to his house and actually in his living room in Memphis. He was so proud of it. A few years after that, he decided to sell it, so he took it to Mecum Auctions and it was a live auction on tv. And he actually showed up and played the piano, and the motorcycle sold for $380,000 that day. So it's a top 20 auction motorcycle of all time. So we were very happy to be part of that and really what it did is it helped him through his last few years too. He's still living, but, somebody else has that motorcycle now. So the connection, this is the story where the connection came. Their family had been working with an Evel collector. His name is Lathan McKay. Lathan had a partnership with the son-in-law, of Jerry Lee Lewis. After we had built this bike, Zeke Lofton, Jerry Lee's son-in-law called me and said, my friend Lathan just bought, Evel's Mack Truck, his 1974 Mack truck and trailer, Big Red. And that's what Big Red looked like back in the day. If you remember it, it was a show hauler. It was a signature piece and it went to every jump that he did and it needed to be restored. So they were looking for somebody that could restore this Mack truck. And they thought of me because we did motorcycles, so they called to get advice on it if we knew anybody that could restore a Mack truck and when I heard it was Evel Knievel's, it just came out of my mouth that we restore Mack trucks. So we worked on this thing for two years and then we found out we do restore Mack trucks. But it was really the moment that we made this connection and the truck, as you can see, once we got it here, we were, they thought we were probably over our heads and that we had taken on too much. But we did involve a team of people in Topeka and this really turned out to be a community project. It involved over 90 different people in the area of different trades and skills of what it took to do this with a few key people being Kansas Powertrain, in North Topeka, and Todd Williams who does a lot of restorations of older cars in Topeka. Many other people had a lot to do with this. We came to the time to do the artwork on the trailer. So we called Evel's original painter, George Sedlak And he came down with two other artists and they worked two weeks in there putting all of the graphics back on and did it just the same way it had been done back in the Seventies. So the truck rolled out. And it was unveiled in 2015. And so we got it back together and it's as good or maybe better than what it was back when Evel had it back in the Seventies. So about that time, Mack Truck got involved because they had given this truck to Evel in 1974 and they heard about it. So they flew back and their executives came in and saw what was going on. And they told us they wanted to get behind this project. So they took the truck and took it on a tour around the country, and it went to Evel Knievel Days where it hadn't been seen in 40 years in Butte, Montana, and led the parade there. The truck runs great by the way. It then went to Hollywood and anchored a red carpet of Johnny Knoxville's documentary on Evel called Being Evel. So we got to do the red carpet with the movie stars and the truck was the main star of that show. It went to some NASCAR races. It went to some truck shows. And then Mack actually put it in their corporate museum in Allentown, Pennsylvania for about six months while we were still building the museum here. So it got a lot of publicity nationwide. An amazing project to be a part of. That's the backstory of how the connection was made with the museum. The first idea was to tour this truck with a lot of his items that he had because Lathan is the world's leading collector of Evel Knievel items. He doesn't just have the truck. He has bikes and leathers and helmets and canes and x-rays. All kinds of things. So while we were building this truck, we came up with the idea that this needed to be in a museum somewhere where people could view it and not be on the road where it was hurting the-- It was taking a toll on the artifacts. One day I just asked Lathan and I said,"Hey, why don't we just build a museum here?" And he said, "yeah, okay." That's how involved the discussions were to make this happen. And then we started on the project. While we were working on the project and the buildings had started, I found out that there was a little more to why this museum was in Topeka, and I had a visit from a really sweet older lady in her eighties, walked into my office and her name was Ivana Logan. She had brought a picture with her mom and Evel to me. And she had gone to Walgreens and had it blown up special so that we could put this picture in the museum. And I just thought that's really sweet. We'll try to find a place to put this in the museum. Didn't really know what else to say to her, so I asked her why is her mom in the picture with Evel? And she said, well, they were family friends. And so I asked more and she began to tell me a story that right now it still makes the hair on my arm stand up. Her uncle was named George. That was Olive's brother. They were from the Osage city area. George, when he was in his early years, would steal his dad's and his uncle's car and run the roads in Osage County there. One night he crashed the car and it rolled and he got in a lot of trouble. So they sent George to military school to straighten him out. George came back and Olive was now living in Topeka. George didn't have a place to live, so he went to live with Olive. George was a shoe shiner. That's what his That's all he knew how to do. So he's walking around Topeka and he comes across the place Shorty Mienholt's Machine shop. Now Mienholt's Machine shop is still here in North Topeka. This is now in the 1930s to give you a timeframe of when we are talking about. George went in to talk to shorty and said, I'd like to have a job. He said I don't have a job, but I work on race cars at night and you can come by and we can work on race cars. So he did it and they went to the races. A driver didn't show up. They put George in the car. He wins. He starts a racing career. Do you know where I'm going with this? This is crazy story, right? So, George was at a race and a reporter didn't know what his name was. He saw St. Joe on the car. So he called him Joie. Joie went on to race in the Indianapolis 500 five times. He was the first to wear a seatbelt at the Indianapolis 500 and had a whole racing career. Crazy right? Gets better. After his career, Joie started a basically a thrill show called Joie Chitwood Thrill Shows. And now I know some of you have heard of Joie Chitwood Thrill shows. And honestly, I did not know that Joie Chitwood was a Topekan, but that's where he's from. So Joie did events all over the country and was nationally known and did an event in Butte, Montana. There that day was a 15-year-old boy named Bobby Knievel watching Joie Chitwood. And on the back of Joie Chitwood's book, there's a quote from Evel Knievel that says,"It was that day that I saw Joie Chitwood that I knew that this is the business that I wanted to be in." And it still makes my hair and my arm stand up. So what we are saying is, if not for Topeka, it's impossible. There wouldn't have been an Evel Knievel. He would've been a miner in Butte just like everybody else. But that inspiration from that Topekan that day put him into the business. Then I knew why we had the museum at Topeka after we had seen that. Pretty cool story there. The museum actually had a grand opening on June 30th. And just a really fun time. I think the thing that most people don't know when they come to our museum is that it's a little more than a display. It's really, I think we can say it's a world class attraction. There's Big Red, the 63 foot truck that's on the lower level. We have his bikes, we have his leathers. We have 60 videos running through the museum of his jumps and his crashes. We have interactive displays. You can do touchscreen and look at his broken bones and look at the x-rays and look at the crashes that caused the broken bones. We have a documentary theater on the truck, and we have a movie theater that shows Evel's movies. Probably the biggest thing that people enjoy is the 4D interactive jump. That's where you get on and you get to sit on a bike and you put on the virtual reality goggles and you make a jump. The footage is from downtown Topeka. We shot it last August. And maybe some of you saw it. And we jumped 15 police cars. So you get to actually go on the jump and there's a lot of screaming in our museum. That's what's unique about our museum. In fact, since this showroom of the dealership is right next to the museum, people are very questioning. They look at us funny when they hear people screaming and they think it's inside the walls and we've had to explain ourselves a little bit why there's people screaming in our showroom. But it's fun. It's really and it's fun and it's fun to see people when they're in the museum laughing and doing different things. So it's an experience. Now, one person I wanted to also tell you about is another Topekan, Jim Caplinger. I know many of you know Jim, but without Jim the museum wouldn't be what it is. There were a few items that were really important to have: Evel's Sky Cycle. Real quick. When Lathan went to go get the rocket, it was in Canada. It had made it Every artifact in this museum has a story of its own, and once it got to Canada, we went up to get it and Lathan was going across the border and we learned something that we won't ever say again. You don't say you're going to get a rocket when you cross the border. He was detained for a long time. There's some amazing artifacts in there that the fact that we even have that wouldn't have happened without Jim Caplinger. One of our co-founders, along with Lathan and myself, and wanted to make sure you guys knew about him. On June 30th, we had our grand opening, as I said, and these were people that came from all over the country, literally coast to coast. 11 of Evel's crew members are still alive, and 10 of them were there that night, along with his wife and his son Robbie, who went on and did his career of jumping as well, and his daughter Tracy was there. We had some visitors from England that made the trip over just for the evening. And it was a real epic night and a great way to a kickoff the museum's start. Since that time, we've had, 49 states of 50 visit. As of today, we are still looking for Utah. So if anybody has friends in Utah, we need to get this done. In first three months, we are pretty proud that that has happened. I think over 10 countries that joined us too. I hope I know some of you have been to the museum and if you haven't, we'd love to see you. You need to plan on about two hours when you come through, at least two hours. I think you'll have a good visit. We just recently had a visit from a TV media guy that's in the music business. He's actually was an old MTV disc jockey. His name's Ricky Rockman. He came in and while he was there, he had to do a radio interview for a radio station in Oklahoma City. So he stopped and did the interview and I sat and listened to it when he was talking and he said, I'm standing in the Evel Knievel Museum. I have an Elvis tattoo on my arm, and this place is better than Graceland is what he said on the interview to Oklahoma City. So thank you. I do want to open it up if anybody has any questions. We are getting short on time, but if there's anybody that would has a question about the museum or anything we did. Yes, sir Where? Where did the name Evel come from? E-V-E-L. Evel was a kind of a character in Butte and he got in trouble a lot and he was in jail one night. Also in jail that night was a guy named Knoefel. There was a Knoefel in there and a Knievel, and the prison guard said, Boy, we got a great one tonight. We got Awful Knoefel in here and Evel Knievel. And that's a true story. That's how it happened. But he didn't like the idea of it being EVIL, being truly evil, so he changed it to EVEL. Yes. How many visitors have you had at the museum so far? So far over 6,000 people have gone through. 51% have been from out of state, which is really great. That's what we really hoped for. Another 38% have been outside of Topeka, so almost 90% have been people that have come into our community. Also we are tracking overnight stays, and it's been a really large portion of them have stayed overnight in Topeka. So it's doing what we hoped. It's bringing people into our community and we are just going to ramp that up. We are just getting started on that. I also want you guys to know that we have corporate events available. We are doing meetings and parties, Christmas parties. If it's something that you or your business would like to do, we have that opportunity. There's one going on right now at the museum. So thank you for letting me be here today. Joanne Morrell would like to say somethig about Mike. This has not been vetted, so I'm not sure what it's going to be. I just wanted to say working with this group for the past two years, what an amazing team they have. Mike's not really good about tooting his own horn, so I appreciate just a couple minutes to let you guys know this is an investment of over $5 million to our community, and like Mike said, the sponsors who made it happen and really stepped up and helped. But principally, people come to the museum and what we keep hearing is, It's really a museum, like it's legit. And on your table you have just some recent reviews, online reviews, five stars across the board, over 200 reviews since we've opened. That is a credit to Mike and his team who built the museum. Every display panel, they fact check it.

Mike's up until 2: 24:03

00 AM making sure everything -i's dotted, t's crossed. It's been amazing working with them. And if you haven't been here, I know some of you have, but if you haven't been there, you just have to go and see it for yourself. This is a great group. We are pleased to be here today. And I just wanted to give Mike a round of applause for seeing this vision and bringing this to Topeka. It is the only one in the world and it is something we can all be super proud of. So please come visit if you haven't. Thank you, Mike.