The oldest-living South Dakotan was at the first rally over 80 years ago
STURGIS, SOUTH DAKOTA – At the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, it’s not all bikinis and debauchery.
Some just come to feel the omnipresent rumble, to wave to the bikers and to take in the smell of fried food and fuel.
And they come back for it year after year (after year).
This year's 85th annual rally is expected to bring in a record number of guests, surpassing 700,000 bikers who will crowd Main Street in Sturgis, South Dakota Aug. 1-10, filling the campgrounds, mingling at the Buffalo Chip, looping through the Black Hills and screaming along with ZZ Top, Gene Simmons, Nickelback, Jason Aldean and Marilyn Manson.
Some of them may pass by the home of a local woman who won't make it this year, but has been a part of Sturgis lore since the beginning.
'Fascinated' by motorcycles since 1938
At 109 years old, Hazel (Bush) Baumberger is the oldest living South Dakotan and a longtime admirer of the rally. She was there for the first one in 1938, when she and her husband, Art, heard about dirt track races in the Black Hills and choked on dust for a few days.
Local Indian Motorcycle dealer Clarence “Pappy” Hoel founded the rally with nine stuntmen bikers in 1938. Before that, Sturgis hosted horse races in the 1870s. Hoel continued to evolve what began as the Black Hills Motor Classic, from racing and stunts to live music, bike shows and rides through the Black Hills.
According to the City of Sturgis, demographics for the rally today hover around 62% male riders and 37% female, around ages 45 to 65. The city sees up to 20 times more traffic, especially during the second and third day of the rally, and top visitors come from New York, Texas, California, Wyoming and Colorado.
Baumberger, though, doesn’t own a motorcycle. She doesn’t wear leather. And, no, she never made it to one of the infamous rock concerts at The Buffalo Chip outside of town.
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But you would’ve seen her on Lazelle Street, and she’d always don a rally T-shirt with a Harley-Davidson pin on her lapel.
“Motorcycles fascinated her,” said Sandra Griese, Baumberger’s 79-year-old niece who still spends time her with “Annie” every week.
“I don’t even know why, but she loves the chrome, and she loves the noise," Griese said.
And the rally came to love her.
Hells Angels and temporary tattoos
Baumberger was recently named the South Dakota Centenarian of the Year, a title she bestowed last year as well.
She’s the longest-serving member of the South Dakota Health Care Association’s Century Club, and she’s still a chatty and chipper resident at Peaceful Pines Senior Living in Fort Pierre, South Dakota.
“She manages to amaze us every day here,” said Jalen Bame, executive director of Peaceful Pines. Baumberger has been living there since it opened last year.
But she has so many stories to tell, how could she idle?
Her last visit to the rally was in 2015, when she rode in on the back of her great nephew’s Harley-Davidson at 99 years old.
“It was the most wonderful day I ever had,” Griese recalled Baumberger saying then.
But, oh, the other wonderful days she had. Her nephew Jim Bush lives in Sturgis and served as the city’s police chief from 1990-2016, a safe guide for Baumberger through the chaos.
On one of her annual trips to the rally, Bush told her the Hells Angels motorcycle club was riding through town, and she insisted on having a look.
He drove her and her sister, Rose – a longtime travel companion – downtown and told them to stay on the sidewalk.
“But ... they wanted as close to those motorcycles as they could get,” Griese said.
Her great niece, Michelle Kohn, said Baumberger was once asked if she would’ve gone on a ride with one of them had they offered.
“Hell, yeah!” Baumberger said.
“She’s fearless,” said Kohn, who plans to attend the rally this year with her Honda Rebel.
Her nephew, the former police chief, often threw her in the back of his police cruiser to parade her through town. She’d roll down her window and wave at all the passersby.
“You know,” she told Bush, “I bet everyone thinks we’re drunk and going to jail.”
And she loved the attention nonetheless.
Baumberger was likely the most innocent darling of the rally. She never really drank beer, never camped, maybe gambled in a bit a bit just to pull down the lever and hear the jingle of the machines, and only managed a fake tattoo on her arm.
“But she did try to convince her friends at coffee that she and Rose got a real one,” Griese said. “They had a bang out of that.”
Someone get her some leather
Baumberger was a farm girl, first in rural Onida, South Dakota, and then helping her husband on his farm with cattle and labor. She still owns their farmland today.
She never had any children but her 14 nieces and nephews would take turns driving her to the rally after she couldn’t drive herself anymore.
She never remarried after Art died, but she led an annual Bush family reunion for nearly 90 years.
Griese said she was “very flashy,” dressed well and always pressed her jeans “with the crease down the middle.”
But she never donned a Harley-Davidson leather jacket (although the company did send her some swag once, many stickers of which adorn her walker at Peaceful Pines).
Last year, her family organized a “Rally for Hazel,” inviting bikers to stop by Peaceful Pines so she could see the motorcycles and maybe share stories. There was cake, lemonade and poker chips.
There are no plans for another drive-by for Baumberger this year, but perhaps the centenarian will listen for the growl of a hog still, her lullaby as she rides toward yet another decade.
