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November 3, 2017 CapitalPress.com 15 Antique tractor starts with a ‘bang’ By GEOFF PARKS For the Capital Press Courtesy Photo Don Studier of Corvallis, Ore., with one of the tractors he brought to last year’s Willamette Valley Ag Expo. Studier has been superin- tendent of the Cascade Building for a decade. Volunteer helps Expo run smoothly By GEOFF PARKS For the Capital Press For some reason, when Don Studier claims he was “roped into” or “had his arm twisted” to become the superintendent of the Cas- cade Building during the Willamette Valley Ag Expo, it sounds a little tongue-in- cheek. Studier, who owns a small piece of hay land near Corvallis, has been involved with the Expo on a volunteer basis the last 10 years as the huge Cascade Building’s su- perintendent, or manager. “Every year I say this is the last one,” he laughed, “but I enjoy working with all the people and all the ma- chinery at the Expo so much that I keep on going.” Volunteers are the life- blood of the Expo, said event producer Scott Ingalls. Hundreds of hours of unpaid work pay off in camaraderie, goodwill among the work- ers, those they are serving with the work, and those who attend the three-day event. Before becoming a volun- teer, “I brought antique trac- tors to the Expo’s Antique Farm Equipment Display for the first couple of years of the event,” Studier said. “And now I do what others do (as a superinten- dent). I check in vendors, make sure everyone shows up and put them where they need to go,” he said. He works about four hours on the Sunday before the Tues- day start of the Expo, then all day Monday, getting the equipment owners signed in and the tractors themselves lined up and grouped by make. “It adds up to about 16 to 20 hours, then on the last day, Thursday, we work clearing things out until ev- erybody is gone at about 10 p.m.” “Early on, I started dis- playing equipment — I re- store antique tractors — and nowadays still bring in one or two pieces,” he said. One year he brought a rare Ferrari tractor and this year will display a 1950s-era Minneapolis-Moline. Alan Painter of Browns- ville, Ore., has the perfect machine to get the Willamette Valley Ag Expo’s Antique Tractor Display “off with a bang” on Nov. 14 in the Cas- cade Building at the Linn County Fair and Expo Center. Of the four tractors Paint- er, 77, will be taking to the Albany event, the 1929 Lanz Bulldog is unquestionably unique. With a removable steering wheel that doubles as a crank, the engine de- velops 15 to 30 horsepower running on “just about any carbon-based fuel” including kerosene or diesel. The battleship gray Ger- man unit has red accents, massive steel wheels and a jet-black smokestack. Painter demonstrated the 10-minute routine the Lanz Geoff Parks/For the Capital Press Alan Painter of Brownsville, Ore., works with his 1929 Lanz trac- tor, a German model that features a steering wheel that doubles as a crank starter and a cigarette-and-shotgun shell starting mechanism. operator must go through to start the tractor. He begins by placing a lit cigarette-like rolled paper into a slot at the front of the machine. He then loads a shotgun cartridge containing gunpowder into a slot leading into the combus- tion chamber and sets it off with a hammer. It’s not the most elegant starting mechanism, but Painter says the machine will “run all day, even during WVAG17-3/101 lunch,” so startup is a once-a- day event. Painter was born in Eng- land and moved to the U.S. in 1967 at the age of 27 to work at Boeing near Seattle. He purchased his Brownsville land to raise sheep and hay for their feed, and has been involved in the 17-year-old Willamette Valley Ag Expo for several years. Painter’s Lanz will join 50-plus other antique tractors and related imple- ments and equipment at the three-day Expo. He plans on bringing three other ma- chines from his 65-acre farm. Those will include a 1931 4-wheel-drive 15/24 horsepower Massey-Harris; a 1950 40-horsepower Field Marshall and a two-cylinder, 25-horsepower 1959 Porsche Diesel Standard, one of only 125,000 tractors the noted German automaker produced.
