Les Houck | 2024

For our next Pulling Hall of Fame inductee, the command to “Think globally, act locally” only tells a fraction of the story. His vision for the expansion of tractor pulling—first in his home county, next in his state’s capital, then through the established national organization, and after that across an ocean—compelled him to think and act both locally and globally, and to his beloved motorsport’s great benefit.

Les Houck grew up on a dairy farm in Paradise Township, Pennsylvania, about midway between Scranton and Allentown in the heart of Amish and Mennonite country. His bride Faye was raised in neighboring Salisbury Township, and the couple started life together in her hometown, the tourist-heavy Intercourse, before moving to the quieter Kinzers.

An Ed Johnson “Spotlight” subject in the January 1976 edition of The Puller Magazine, Houck was described by the author as the “shot in the arm for tractor pulling in Pennsylvania and the East.” By that time, Houck had already partnered with Johnson on an offshoot of his Agri Broadcasting Network to serve growers in the Keystone State with news of commodity prices and farming finances on regional radio. And he had served as a Salisbury Township supervisor for two years after a stint on its planning commission.

He would retire from the former about 30 years later amid an evolving media landscape. He would retire from the latter after 50 years of dedication to local governance. Honored in the U.S. Congressional Record, Houck is described as “a trusted voice who is sought out for counsel in Lancaster County and across the Commonwealth as well.”

It has oft been said: If you want something done, ask a busy person. And so, after tractor pulling began to develop a following in southeastern PA owing to the success of events in northeastern PA, it was incumbent on the local players to choose their captain. Les Houck promoted his first event at the Rough & Tumble Engineers Historical Association Grounds in Kinzers in the fall of 1970 with a mechanical weight exchanger and crew on loan from fellow Pennsylvanian Eugene Sellers. “We started right out on a transfer. To my knowledge, there’s never been a pull on concrete or a dead boat pull in Lancaster County.”

The nascent sport had found its location and its leader. The Historical Association commissioned the building of a sled of its own, and 1971’s calendar featured a half-dozen events.

The dream of a wintertime indoor event followed. Despite some doubts—“There came a time when we decided that the gamble was too great,” Houck admitted to Johnson—but with NTPA Executive Director Ed Hart’s encouragement, the Penn Winternationals debuted in January 1973 with a $10,500 purse and 8,000 fans in two sessions at the state farm show grounds in Harrisburg. In ’74, the Winternationals more than doubled its purse and entertained 12,000 fans across four sessions, and ’75’s iteration drew over 20,000 through the turnstiles, limited only by the 7,500-seat capacity of the farm show auditorium.

The Winternationals’ immediate success spawned a warm-weather counterpart, the Summernationals, which put Kinzers on the NTPA’s regular-season schedule through the mid-1970s. Houck credits the near-weekly pulls about a half hour away along U.S. 30 near the town of Lancaster, a facility now known as Buck Motorsports Park, for priming the pump with an ample supply of vehicles.

“A guy can build a tractor knowing that there’s a track close by where he can compete weekly,” Houck observed. “Our problem is, we’re growing too fast… The Chapter and I just hope that we can make the right decisions for our area,” Houck remarked with characteristic humility.

To the operation of his broadcasting business, his service to his township, and the promotion of multiple pulls, Les Houck added another responsibility: Secretary-Treasurer of the Commonwealth’s NTPA affililate, the Pennsylvania Tractor Pullers Association, in 1973. And another, as he and Faye started the “PTPA Pulloff” newsletter of which he served as editor-in-chief.

Oh, and another in 1976, when he succeeded Sellers as the national Secretary and then moved on to the Treasurership. And still another, when after brief flirtations with Super Stock pulling, he purchased Vern Miller’s twin-440 Dodge Modified and applied the label “Foxy Lady.”

For those keeping score, that makes two such mechanized mistresses by that moniker among the Association’s executive officers, President Dave Haley’s single Allison being the other. But wait, it gets better.

Pennsylvania pulling’s indispensable man had gotten the attention of the national membership, and by election in the 1979 fall meetings, Les Houck succeeded Haley as the Association’s third President.

Houck skillfully used the editorial pages of The Puller to communicate his thoughts to an NTPA that now stretched from coast to coast. His first “From the President’s Chair” column in June 1980 discussed the Watkins weight transfer patent lawsuit and the steps toward a settlement that would keep both sled operators and the NTPA on the track. And the December 1980 edition included this frank admission after rules proposals he had submitted years before as a state delegate were summarily rejected:

“You can bet that my feelings were hurt…. The only problem was that my idea for changes was perfect for me and not the majority of pullers across the country. Not until I realized that everyone has a different idea was I able to start to work and push items for passage at the full board meetings that would benefit everyone.

“Not until I was ready to give up a lot and get a little from NTPA did I accomplish anything that I wanted for myself.”

Houck’s career in on-track competition with the “Foxy Lady” lasted but a few seasons and netted one PTPA title. But what it lacked in longevity and accolades it more than surpassed in reach and impact. Houck was part of the original October 1977 delegation of American pullers to the World Plowing Championships in the Netherlands, which was reciprocation for Houck’s group in Southeastern PA presenting a series of exhibition pulls for European visitors four years earlier.

This first-of-its-kind competition, which featured Houck’s Modified and the Stauffers’ “Sneeki-Pete” Deutz Super Stock as well as local farm stock tractors pulling the Southeast PA club sled, was the stream of ether that got the European pulling engine started, as over 70,000 curious fans attended over the course of the pull’s two days.

By the time he assumed the NTPA Presidency, Houck had sold the highly competitive “Lady” to Maurice Immick Sr. of Amsterdam, who entered it regularly in competition in the Nederlandse (nader-LAN-see) Trekker-Trek Organisatie (organi-ZAT-see), one of several Continental pulling groups that were spawned by those sea-crossing visits to Lancaster County.

So with his free time (we kid), Houck proceeded to take event photos for The Puller, step in occasionally as flagman, and announce at several sanctioned events, notably Cayuga, Ontario and Syracuse, New York, with Faye as his helper. As in pulling, so in life.

Before the conclusion in late 1982 of his three-year term at the NTPA’s helm, Houck and his administration, including Executive Director Dave Grimm, had secured the largest sponsorship support program in the history of pulling. Wrangler was named the title sponsor of both the Indy Super Pull, the NTPA invitational held in Indianapolis each January, and the entire Championship Pulling Series.

That ’82 national circuit included events in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pannsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Les Houck’s Association was on full display before pulling fans across this country and around the world.

Wrote Grimm in the January 1983 issue, “If you had to ‘order up’ a president for NTPA, or any organization for that matter, Les Houck’s name would have topped the computer printout. Upon his election three years ago, he told members, ‘Call me if you need help or just want to talk. I won’t always tell you what you want to hear, but I’ll listen to your problems and hopefully, suggestions.’ Many times, instead of jumping on the bandwagon, he’d take the opposing view so that all ideas were discussed and thought out before decisions were made.

“He represented this Association to the fullest,” Grimm concluded. “He is a Man for All Seasons.”

With Dennis Brabec’s ascent to the presidency, Houck had reached the summer solstice in his relationship with the motorsport. He continued his work toward the success of truck and tractor pulling at the state level. Through the end of the decade, he served as the PTPA’s Executive Director, and then he wound down his involvement in pulling governance in favor of reallocating his time to Faye, Missy, and Chad, his fledgling broadcasting business, and his community.

A half century has passed since Les Houck put together a tractor pull because it was time his hometown had one. Since he forged a bond between the Pennsylvania Dutch and the Western European Dutch that brought a new sport to the Old World. Since he was simultaneously a competitor, promoter, officer, photographer, announcer, official, editor, and intercontinental ambassador.

To be sure, the “made-to-order” president, by his own admission, “gave up a lot” for the NTPA. What we can do for him tonight, how we can stand for him tonight and recognize his supreme effort with induction into our sport’s most exclusive society, is meant to provide a little in return.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage Les Houck, our newest inductee into the Pulling Hall of Fame.