LeAnn Carraway and her late husband Randy had been planning a ride to Hollister before his death in July 2012.
Even with his passing, she ended up keeping their plans. She came to the Hollister Rally last weekend and brought her late husband’s ashes with her. Carraway left those ashes at a Boozefighters memorial placed in the back of Johnny’s Bar & Grill, where the club originated.
She said her late husband started a Boozefighters chapter in North Dakota.
“This is my first year here and my husband passed away last summer,” Carraway said. “He was a Boozefighter, so I came to put his ashes at Johnny’s bar where the Boozefighters originated.”
She placed those ashes July 4 at the memorial that also includes the ashes of Boozefighters founder “Wino” Willie Forkner and other late club members.
“We wanted to come to Hollister this year, and obviously he wasn’t able to make it,” Carraway said. “So I made it here for him and left him here.”
She went on: “I wanted him to be here where his brothers come all the time to have a few beers and hang out.”
Johnny’s has been the place to hang out for Boozefighters for more than six decades. The club was credited with mobilizing the so-called “invasion” of Hollister in 1947 that sparked the city’s biker legend.
“It was the place they were in 1947,” said Charisse Tyson, Johnny’s owner, of the Boozefighters.
It was the first time in Hollister for Carraway and others in her group at the rally on its first day.
“It’s incredible, just the change from yesterday to today,” said Carraway, who arrived the day before the rally. “Today, it’s just amazing, all the bikes.”
One of the other bikers in her group, “Boozefighter Foo Man” from Colorado Springs, reiterated her feelings.
“It’s pretty awesome,” he said. “It’s a lot of beautiful bikes.”
