Sunshine Swampers

History Sunshine Swampers

We started out as a group of trail riders meeting at random places each Sunday to ride in Richloam and other places such as Ridge Manor Estates (abandoned subdivision in eastern Hernando County.) Several of the original members such as Art Granger, Darrell Pennington, Ronnie Hutton, Raymond Smith, Lonnie Smith, Jimmy Smith, Tommy Thompson, and Lonnie Rhodes, were regulars and wanted to start an official club with rules and regulations. This was during the summer of 1984, a time period when a few of us were racing on a regular mud bogging circuit ever Saturday. After months of meeting once a week at different locations, we decided it was time to start a family oriented club with rules and regulations to fit our purpose. It was to have clean law abiding fun with our trucks, jeeps and four wheelers. We had a general meeting and invited all of the good old boy mud buddies we knew and elected officers, to whom the responsibility of writing our rules and regulations was given. After two or three months of meetings with offices and member, we had our format. From there the club grew with leaps and bounds, doing things such as cook outs, putting on races with all types of competitions, car washes, raffles, beach rides, camping trips in Ocala ( just to mention a few), and other projects to build our club. At that time we had not come up with a club name. All members submited a suggested name with the winner being given a free dinner of choice, compliments of the club (in Dade City of course). The winner was Kathy Murphy with the name Sunshine Swampers. We are member of three county emergency rescue and evacuations teams, having been called in on several emergencies in all three counties, such as searching for missing children, flood evacuation, ect. The bottom line is: We're here to help our community, law enforcement and people in need of our services while having as much fun as possible with our 4x4's.