IAR Recyclers Newspress May / June 2015

Cover / 24

History of Iowa Automotive Recyclers
by John C. Vander Haag
The Iowa Automotive Recyclers will
host the annual Summer Outing and
trade show in Des Moines, Iowa May
29-30, 2015 at the Prairie Meadows
Conference Center. The event will
host an AWARDS LUNCHEON to
honor the association
founders, John C and Ruth Vander
Haag, with a lifetime achievement
award presentation.
There is still time to register!
May / June 2015 Iowa Auto Recyclers
Inside this issue:
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While attending my first National Auto
Truck Wreckers Association or NATWA
convention and after seeing the benefits of
belonging to an association like NATWA, I
came home that fall of 1957, wanting to
start an Iowa association.
John Ruggiero of American Auto Parts in
Omaha, NE, was just organizing the tele-
type communication system between sal-
vage yards in Nebraska, Minnesota and
Iowa, and he gave me a list of name of
salvage yards in Iowa. About the same
time Charley Riggs from Lincoln, NE,
stopped in, asking my thoughts on starting
an auto parts locator magazine, which he
did start. I called a meeting on December
19, 1957 at the Hotel Fort Des Moines in
Des Moines to form the Iowa Auto Truck
Wreckers Association or IATWA. The
first elected officers were President Isa-
dore Tucker of Tucker Auto Parts Co.,
Des Moines. Vice-president Al Wolfe of
Coralville Salvage Co., Coralville and Sec-
retary/Treasurer Charles Riggs of the
newly formed Salvage Locator magazine.
Charley Riggs sold membership along
with his Locator business, as he contacted
salvage yards for ads in his Locator.
At our organizational meeting Isadore
Tucker took over the meeting, became
president and then did not carry through. I
continued to baby sit the Association with
Charley Riggs. After some time Charley
Riggs skipped the country, funds and all
and the Association eventually folded.
Charley Riggs had sold out to John
Holmes Publishing in Whiting, IA, who
was printing local shopper newspapers in
the Sioux City area at the time. The Asso-
ciation died, for lack of a better word.
Summer Outing in Des Moines