Ray Unger Award

I joined our Jaguar Club in 1983, 43 years ago.  At the first meeting I attended, I met Mark Herzog, Margaret Stock, Kate and Dave Norton, Joe Mizerany, Harry and Juanita Feigenbaum, and Ray Unger.  Ray was the President of the club.  From that meeting on, Ray and I became friends and spent many great times together, enjoying our cars and participating in various Jaguar rallyes, races, and events.  Ray was not flashy, but rather a soft-spoken person with always a smile on his face.  He participated in all our club events, helped in planning them, and held numerous club positions from Board Member to President.  I was the Concours Chairman for more than 20 years and for most of those years, Ray was my co-chair.  I came up with many wild and new ideas for venues, trophies and the like and then asked Ray to help make all these things happen.  And he did.  Later, Dorothy, his wife, also joined us in chairing many concours.  Ray and Dorothy put in many hours helping to plan and make sure all aspects of the many events they chaired, result in perfect Jaguar enjoyment.  What I admired most about Ray Unger was his “one for all and all for one” attitude.  His goals were always to be a contributing club member, help make our Jaguar club a friendly organization, and to make sure everyone had a great time.  Ray was always there!  Lupe and I decided that we wanted to create a yearly traveling trophy to be given to one of our members that best represents the spirit of Ray Unger.  Earlier this year, Dorothy donated many Jaguar and JAGSL items to the club from Ray’s collection.  We auctioned off several of the items at the Birthday Party and hold many of the other items in our library of club history.  One of the items from Dorothy’s donation was a trophy Ray was awarded at a Biennial JCNA event.  I decided to use this trophy to create a Special Club Yearly Traveling Trophy to call it the RAY UNGER BEING THERE AWARD, as Ray was always there, helping to make JAGSL the wonderful club it has become.  The inaugural winner will also receive Ray’s 2009 JAGSL Ski Cap and 1986 T-Shirt, Jaguar “nobody’s pussycat.  Those can kept forever or they could be part of the yearly traveling award as well, awardee’s choice.