Member
Spotlight:
Leon & Marcia Duggar
From the November 2002 Issue of Trail Tales
by Bonnie Bannigan
It’s hard to believe that Marcia and Leon Duggar have lived in New Mexico for 3 years already! They moved here from San Antonio, Texas. Marcia and Leon’s "kids" include one dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Dela, two big feline fur balls named Cleo and Patrick, one ’96 Jeep Cherokee, and one ’67 Ford Bronco. Marcia says the Jeep is hers and the Bronco is hers….ok, well…it’s Leon’s when it’s broken…oh, that’s most of the time? Ok, it’s his then.
Marcia, who has held the Historian position with NM4W and is currently our Southwest Delegate, works for Amerind Risk Management doing computer-programming work in Java (not the kind you drink)! Leon manages the only tool rental for Home Depot in the state of NM!
Marcia remembers the first NM4W meeting that Leon was able to attend. She had been in New Mexico for a few months before Leon was able to make the move and she had already attended several meetings on her own. When Leon stood up to introduce himself as a guest and the husband of Marcia, then President Jim Werkmeister promptly remarked that he wasn’t the "husband" Marcia had brought to the LAST meeting!! The Duggars have been members for the almost 3 years since that meeting.
Leon and Marcia who met each
other at a company Christmas party, hit it off real quickly when they were
discussing off-roading and Marcia actually knew what a "locker" was!
So here’s how I imagined their conversation went: Marcia: I’ve been
off-roading since I learned to drive my dad’s CJ-5 around the coal hills of
Pennsylvania. I always had to wash it off before I took it home so dad wouldn’t
know! I just love getting out into nature, the adrenaline rush of going over a
big obstacle, and doing something that is typically a guy thing. Leon, as he
thinks to himself "Bingo! I’ve got a winner here!": Well, in
1984, I was able to ride in the Bronco that I now own. Got it stuck in the
Uvalde River, which is now a source of land use conflict in Texas. Couldn’t
get it into 4-wheel drive; gotta love those Dana 20’s. The owner rescued us by
adeptly finding low range and it pulled itself right out. I’ve been in love
(with you…I mean my Bronco….no you) ever since! I also like the mechanical
challenge of owning, restoring, and modifying a Bronco, and proving all of those
Jeep folks wrong. (Especially the one he lives with!)
The Duggar’s favorite trails vary from the Palo Duro Jeep Jamboree (before they made it too easy), Mt. Blanca, Off Broadway, and the obstacle named "Good, Bad, Ugly" on the Dona Ana trail in Las Cruces where Marcia was surprised that she made it up and over. Marcia’s most memorable event from a trail ride was when they included the Alpine Hill as part of the Dona Ana trail at the Chile Challenge in Las Cruces and she was privileged enough to drive down it, with Leon in the passenger seat! The hill is very steep and loose, an is on top of a ridge, similar to Lion’s Back in Utah but all gravel, with a Toyota corpse down below to point out where you’ll end up if you don’t do it right. The Jeep is automatic and sure enough, it started sliding and fishtail on the way down. Marcia said she reacted by braking and brought the Jeep to a complete stop, angled on the trail. She got it going only to have it fishtail again. Everyone was yelling for her to give it gas, as she hit the brakes once again, ending up in the same angled predicament! She’s been practicing her downhills ever since. Leon’s worst stuck was out in the arroyo off of Golf Course Rd, when he was a third of the way up his first hill climb and the shifter dropped to the floor! The Bronco was stuck in first gear…no second, no reverse, just first. Marcia tried to pull him out but it took a really big Bronco to pull him out, he couldn’t even tell that her Jeep had tried. Upon getting the broken Bronco home, Leon dropped the transmission to find absolutely nothing wrong. The spring that keeps the tension on the shifter had jumped out of the shift fork socket. It could have been fixed with a pair of channel locks in less than 5 minutes!
It’s been great having the Duggars bless the NM4W with their presence and they leave any new enthusiasts and even some old, with this advice; Marcia says…give any "reasonable" obstacle 3 tries and when in doubt, get out and walk the obstacle before driving it. Leon says, (notice I put quotes here. I promise, he really said this! "Listen to Pat even if you want to throttle him sometimes!" I couldn’t have said it better myself!