Our History

This history was assembled from the earliest archived pages of avva.us on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine (snapshots from 2003 through 2021), plus local press coverage in the Yakima Herald-Republic and on KIMA-TV. Every claim below is linked to a numbered source at the bottom of the page.
Corrections and additions are very welcome — log in and edit, or drop us a note.

Founded April 1989

The Apple Valley Volkswagen Association was chartered in April of 1989 by 21 founding Active Members^[12] as a non-profit social club dedicated to the restoration and customization of Volkswagens.^[1,6] From the very beginning the club has not drawn a line between air-cooled and water-cooled cars — everyone is welcome.^[1,6]

The club’s original stated objectives:

AVVA promotes a family interest in various Volkswagen related activities throughout the community and encourages a better understanding of the Volkswagen sport as a constructive sport to the members of the community, press and law enforcement agencies. AVVA promotes safety in automobile maintenance, driving and overall vehicle operations.^[1]

Those ideas still describe the club today.

A charter family: the Andersons

Among the original 1989 charter members were three generations of one Yakima family^[10]:

Charles G. “Andy” Anderson — charter member, owner of a 1962 Gulf Blue Bug nicknamed “Giggles” that he bought new on November 26, 1961 in Waco, TX while stationed at Fort Hood, then took to Germany on deployment in 1964 and drag-raced under FIA regulations before bringing it home. He customized it head-to-toe in 1984; today it runs a 2,276 cc engine, launches at 8,600 rpm, and has clocked a 12.46-second quarter-mile at 108 mph.^[9,10] His daily driver is a 1972 Biscayne Blue Super Beetle named “Goofy”.^[9,10]
Lynn Anderson, Andy’s wife, joined alongside him in April 1989. She owned a 1957 Bug before they were married — which Andy famously rolled days before the wedding.^[10]
Charles Anderson (one of the Andersons’ three sons) — charter member, driver of a 1967 Type 3 Fastback that he has run down the drag strip with the trunk full of groceries for the Volksfest “Hunger Bug” food-drive contest.^[10]
Ron Anderson (another son) — charter member, longtime club president.^[10,15]

By the late-2000s, members were coming in by way of the next generation as well — Steven Aragon, today AVVA’s director, got his start working on a 1967 Beetle with his step-brother Donald as a teenager, driving it back and forth to school every day.^[10,24]

Das Auto, $15 dues, and the original sponsors

The club’s monthly newsletter has been called Das Auto from the beginning.^[4,8] Members may freely advertise VW parts and projects in Das Auto; full annual dues have been $15 for Active Members (age 16+) and $5 for Associate Members (spouse or family of an Active Member, eligible to hold any office except President or Vice President).^[4]

The AVVA membership card has, since the early years, gotten members discounts on parts and accessories at AVVA sponsor Steve Hahn Volkswagen / Audi in Yakima, plus Import Auto, Triangle Auto, and Ovals Motorsport in Federal Way.^[4]

Anyone interested in joining could email joinavva@usa.com back then;^[4] today the mailing address is AVVA, PO Box 10282, Yakima, WA 98909^[17] and the club lives on Facebook at Apple Valley VW.

Where we’ve met — a moving target

AVVA has always met at 7 PM on the first Tuesday of every month, with a midway break and refreshments after. Visitors have always been welcome.^[3,8]

Round Table Pizza, 40th Avenue & Fruitvale Boulevard in Yakima (across from Fred Meyer) — the original meeting spot, in use through at least 2003.^[3]
Magic’s Pizza Shack, 309 S 1st St in Selah — the long-time meeting spot through the 2000s and 2010s.^[11,13,17]
Bob’s Burgers and Brew in Yakima — the current meeting spot.

Business meetings — open to any member — have been held the Tuesday before the General meeting, traditionally at members’ homes “for a little variety.”^[3]

A year in the life of AVVA

Volksfest is the headline event, but the club’s calendar runs all year. From the 2008 event calendar alone^[11]:

Winter: monthly general meetings; a Valentine’s Dinner at El Porton on 48th & Tieton; April Fool’s Day games at the April meeting.
Spring: the Issaquah XXX Drive-In Cruise; an AVVA Mystery Dinner Cruise starting at Moxee City Park; a Yakima Valley Museum group visit; Franklin’s BBQ & Swap Meet in Kent; the multi-club Cruise For The Cure (in 2008 supporting Fisher House at Fort Lewis); the Selah Community Days Parade; the Springmeet at King County Fairgrounds in Enumclaw; the Northwest Bug Run in Woodburn, OR.
Summer: the Deschutes River RendezVW 3-day camp-out in Maupin, OR; the AVVA Anniversary Party in June at Fullbright Park in Union Gap (the club celebrates its birthday with a Brown Bag Auction); the Spokane Bug Fair; V-Dub Nationals at Bremerton Raceway; Steve Hahn’s Customer Appreciation Day BBQ; the Soap Lake Hog Run Reunion; the Great Canadian Volkswagen Weekend in Coquitlam, BC; the Olympic Volks Fair at Cedars Casino in Sequim.
Volksfest weekend in mid-September (see below).
Fall: a cruise to Kennewick for the Mid-Columbia VW Club Chili Contest; the Corn Maze and Wienie Roast at Schell’s in Union Gap.

The club also runs fundraisers (the annual yard/bake sale, Indian John coffee service, car washes) and community service (canned food drives, sponsoring a Christmas family, donations to the local mission).^[2]

Volksfest — 30+ years and counting

The first Volksfest followed the club’s founding by about a year. AVVA’s own 2003 archive describes Volksfest 2002 as “our 13th year”^[5], which puts the inaugural event at 1990; the 32nd Volksfest was held in 2022^[24] and the 33rd in 2023^[25], consistent with a single year (almost certainly 2020) missed along the way.

The event has moved homes once: it ran for years at Applewood Park in Naches, Washington^[5,6,7] before settling at its current home, Moxee City Park (Hwy 24 & Rivard Rd, four miles east of Yakima).^[14,19]

From the club’s own Volksfest page:

Volksfest is and has always been a fun VW family event and not a professional show. Judging is done by AVVA Club members and/or other VW enthusiasts, and are not in any way, shape or form professionals.^[14]

Some traditions that go back decades:

Hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind trophies made by AVVA members every year.^[2,7,14]
Spectators and parking are always free.^[7,14]
Championship Valve Cover Races — the classic VW club tradition of racing tiny gravity-powered cars made from valve covers down a downhill track.^[2,7]
T-shirt design contest for the annual Volksfest shirt.^[2]
The “Hunger Bug” — a Volksfest food-drive contest in which members try to stuff as many groceries as possible into their Bug for donation.^[7,10]
German sausage and sauerkraut lunch, plus chili dogs and burgers.^[5,7]
Drag racing at Renegade Raceway (Parker, WA) on the Saturday of Volksfest weekend — in the early years AVVA Bugs raced “against the Mopars, Mustangs, and any other muscle car that had the nerve to challenge us.”^[5,22,23]
Saturday-night camping on the bare lawn of the host park — bring a BBQ, a tent, a cold spigot.^[7,14]
Cruisin’ The Ave — an open cruise on Yakima Avenue (Sixth Street to 12th Avenue, 6–10 PM), where AVVA hosts all vehicles — hot rods, low riders, classics, imports, motorcycles — not just VWs.^[20]
Saturday Cruise-In + Poker Run + Creeper Race — the long-running Saturday warmup, hosted at Miner’s Drive-In in the early years^[5] and at Taco Time on So. 1st St in Yakima later^[7,11].
Tug-A-Bug — a Volksfest staple competition.^[11]
Door prizes given out all day, every day, plus dash plaques in the goody bags and a split-the-pot raffle.^[11,14]

The event draws Volkswagens from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, British Columbia, and beyond.^[8,24,25] In 2023, Lind Bjornsen drove in from Idaho with what he describes as one of the first Volkswagens imported into the U.S. in 1955 — “the only one left of its kind” — after a five-month restoration.^[25]

In the press

AVVA and Volksfest have been covered by local media for decades:

Yakima Herald-Republic — “Volksfest Sunday: Volkswagen car photos” photo gallery (2018).^[21]
Yakima Herald-Republic — “Volksfest in Moxee brings VW fans together” (Sept. 17, 2017), featuring quotes from attendees Troy Hobbs of Spokane and Doug Houfek of Yakima.^[19]
Yakima Herald-Republic — “Open cruise night on Yakima Avenue set for Saturday night” (Sept. 10, 2018).^[20]
Yakima Herald-Republic — “VW car show and drag races” photo gallery (2015).^[22]
Yakima Herald-Republic — 2015 Volksfest drag race at Renegade Raceway video.^[23]
KIMA-TV — “People from all over the map joined in Moxee for the Apple Valley Volksfest” (Sept. 18, 2022; the 32nd annual).^[24]
KIMA-TV — “Volkswagen enthusiasts unite in Moxee for the 33rd annual Apple Valley Volksfest” (Sept. 17, 2023).^[25]
YouTube — VW Bug and Bus Camp Show at Volksfest 2024 — The Moxee Movie.^[26]

A handful of quotes that capture the spirit of the event:

“It used to be cheap transportation for everybody. But now they’re getting more expensive where you can’t just drive them everyday. It’s made everybody a little closer.”
— Troy Hobbs, attendee, Spokane (Yakima Herald-Republic, 2017)^[19]

“If you’re a Volkswagen fan, you follow them all the time, it seems to be. It’s the cult of them. They’ve been around so long they’re different.”
— Doug Houfek, attendee, Yakima (Yakima Herald-Republic, 2017)^[19]

“I been a big bus fan for a long time and there’s a lot of cool, rare and just different style of buses out this year…I grew up on beetles and so the beetles stop me dead in my track.”
— Steven Aragon, AVVA director (KIMA-TV, 2022)^[24]

“I go to shows all over the world and of all the shows of the year, this is my absolute favorite show.”
— Lind Bjornsen, attendee from Idaho with a 1955 VW (KIMA-TV, 2023)^[25]

Some of the people who made it run

By the early 2010s, the club roster on avva.us listed^[15]:

Ron Anderson — President (and charter member)
Kay S. — Treasurer
Mike M. — Newsletter Editor (Das Auto)
Andy W. — Membership Coordinator
Dusty H. — Run Director
Anne H. — Secretary (Dusty and Anne ran AVVA’s Volksfest contact line together for years^[13,14])
Paul T. (Paul Tourtellot^[10]) — long-time member since July 1996, owner of a 1974 VW Thing he restored for prospecting trips into the hills

The current director is Steven Aragon.^[24]

Friend clubs and partners

AVVA has long swapped events and members with sister VW clubs around the Pacific Northwest^[18,28]:

Mid-Columbia VW Club (Kennewick — AVVA cruises down for their annual Chili Contest^[11])
Northwest VW Club (Springmeet host)
River City VW Club
Rose City Volksters (Portland)
Franklins
Cascade Kombis^[28]
Kahiko Kula Club^[28]
Type 181 Registry (the “Thing” registry)
NIDRA (Northwest International Drag Racing Association)
Bad Bug Racing
Rocky Jennings Enterprises — the engine builder behind Andy Anderson’s “Giggles”^[9]

Past sponsors who helped keep Volksfest going

A non-exhaustive look at sponsors over the years:

2012 Volksfest:^[13] Steve Hahn Volkswagen-Audi-Kia, Les Schwab Tire Center, KAPP-TV, Money Tree, Washington Department of Transportation, Off The Record, Liberty Orchard, Frank’s Tire Selah, Yakima Visitor Center, Washington State Lottery, Golden Scissors Hair Salon, R & Q Machine Parts, Magic’s Pizza Shack, Dusty & Anne Hatch, Bowlby’s Pawn Shop, AMB Tools, Central Washington State Fair, Clover Leaf, Denny’s, Farmer’s Insurance (Sharon Dwinell), State Farm Insurance (Bruce Sears).

2014 Volksfest:^[14] Steve Hahn Volkswagen-Audi-Mercedes, Les Schwab, Yakima Networking, Money Tree, WSDOT, Shari’s Restaurant, Liberty Orchard, Yakima Visitor Center, Washington State Lottery, State Farm Insurance (Bruce Sears), Airheads Parts, Legends Casino, Bergen Screen Print, Banner Bank, Selah 7-11, Grocery Outlet, Dave Manning, AMB Tools, Abbey’s Cakes, Tree Top, Miner’s Restaurant.

Thank you to every business that has helped over the years.

Help us fill in the gaps

The public record gets thinner the further back you go. If you have photos, old Das Auto newsletters, results sheets, t-shirt designs, trophy photos, or stories from any year — especially the 1990s — please reach out via the Contact page or log in and drop them right onto this page.

Sources

Have something to add? Drop it here.

Photos, scanned newsletters, results sheets, video clips — whatever you’ve got. Submit one file or a whole batch at once. Submissions go to the club for review before they appear on the site.