The late Buddy Oney was a motorcycle enthusiast who was all about helping and giving.
“He loved people and by that I mean he would give you the shirt off his back,” said Janet Svrcek, one of his daughters, before the start of the 15th annual Buddy Oney Toy Run on Saturday.
That is why since 2005 there has been a motorcycle toy run in his honor held every year since then with the exception of 2006.
The year after 2006 Charlie Starr and his Bad to the Bone motorcycle group took over running the tribute and fundraiser that annually helps kids have a happier Christmas.
“We took the ball and ran with it,” Starr said of he and his riding buddies, Neal Ferrell and the late Loy Woolverton, who took over organizing the event in 2007.
“I think it is amazing after all these years,” Svrcek said of the annual event. “It would just tickle him. He would be humbled by it thinking ‘Why me?’ ”
Her sister Vickie New agreed.
“He would be in awe of it and honored,” she said. “He was willing to do anything for anybody.”
She recalled a time when her dad was on a ride with other motorcyclists when a wreck happened. A father and daughter were injured badly enough to be hospitalized.
“He stopped and offered aid and a day later he brought the daughter home from the hospital,” she said.
Even though their dad loved his motorcycles, he gave them up while his girls were growing up.
“He had a bike before we were born,” Svrcek said.
But he quit riding for a bit when his children were born.
“He just concentrated on his family, but he took it back up when we were older,” she said.
He loved to travel and the family took vacations to West Virginia and Florida to visit relatives, his daughters said. He also took trips on his motorcycle with his riding friends, Rod Roderick said.
“He rode to Sturgis (site of a major annual motorcycle rally in South Dakota) with us twice,” Roderick said.
“He was a good old boy in general. If he said he was going to do something, he would show up and do it,” Roderick said.
“He liked camping out which is what we did on the trips to Sturgis,” he said. “He definitely like to ride his motorcycle. He had a Harley, that’s what we all rode.”
Oney took part in the community, his daughters said.
“He was a Mason and also a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He was active in St. John’s Methodist Church,” Svrcek said.
“He was a welder by trade. He worked at Alcoa doing general labor,” New said.
But he would also take extra jobs to pay for extra things, New said. Like the time she got cheerleader when she was in junior high.
“I have to have a uniform and go to camp, so he got an extra job to pay for that,” she said. “He was an awesome man in my eyes.”
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