FMCA has benefited from Bill and Deanie Hendrix’s lifelong association with RVs.
By John Johnston, Associate Editor
August 2019
FMCA membership number F761 has a long, proud history. It encompasses three generations and stretches to the present day.
The Hendrix family’s connection to FMCA stretches back more than 50 years, starting with Art and Mildred (whose nickname was Toots), pictured in about 1975 with their Holiday Rambler.
Art and Mildred (better known as Toots) Hendrix received the number when they joined FMCA in 1965. Their son and daughter-in-law, Bill and Deanie Hendrix, F761S, became members in 1977, about the same time as Bill’s sister and brother-in-law, Betty and Edwin Duncan, F761D. And in 2018, FMCA welcomed Bill and Deanie’s children, Dana and Brad, and their spouses. Dana and her husband, Eric Hepker, are F761G1. Brad and his wife, Suzi, are F761G2.
The Hendrix name is familiar to many longtime FMCA members mainly because of Bill and Deanie. For more than 30 years, Bill’s byline appeared regularly in the pages of FMCA’s magazine. And for 23 years, Bill and Deanie were fixtures at every FMCA convention and at most other large RV rallies.
At such events, they came to work, not to play. As field service managers for Dometic, they did their best to solve problems that people were having with the company’s products. Refrigerators were the priority. As Bill noted, “When the refrigerator quits, the camping trip is pretty much over.”
Indeed, a refrigerator that fails to keep the cold cuts cold or allows the ice cream to melt can bring out the worst in normally mild-mannered RVers. It can cause them to curse and throw up their hands and demand something be done NOW!
Art and Mildred “Toots” Hendrix passed their love of RVing on to their children, Betty and Bill. Betty Hendrix Duncan and her husband, Edwin (shown here), became FMCA members about the same time as Bill and Deanie Hendrix.
Deanie bore the brunt of people’s frustration as she sat at a service desk. “She had to listen to all the complaints,” Bill said, “and get something down on paper so we could try to remedy the situation.”
Occasionally, Deanie politely asked irate people to come back after they had calmed down. And sometimes, she dealt with men who didn’t want to talk to a woman, figuring she didn’t know much. Deanie chuckled at the memory. “I knew more than any of those men did, I’ll tell you.”
Usually, she managed to smooth things over. “There was always a way to make people happy, if they would let you,” she said.
“Sometimes,” Bill added, “all it took was a hug.”
More often, though, it took technical expertise, which was provided by Bill and, at large rallies, up to a dozen Dometic technicians. Ralph and Sylvia Quayle, full-timers and FMCA members who traveled with the Hendrixes for several years, also were a big help. At the August 2000 FMCA convention in Brunswick, Maine — the largest ever, with 7,422 motorhomes in attendance — Dometic techs made a whopping 420 service calls, Bill said.
Working at rallies “was a wonderful job,” Deanie said, “and we were busy from the time we got there until we rolled away.
“After (a rally) was all over,” she added with a laugh, “we decided we enjoyed it. But not during.”
Bill and Deanie Hendrix once were familiar faces at FMCA events, providing service for Dometic. Bill also was a regular contributor to FMCA’s magazine, and a longtime member of the Technical Advisory Committee.
The Hendrixes worked about 575 rallies, starting in 1985 when they were full-time RVers living in a former Greyhound bus. They did all the conversion work themselves, which included replacing much of the exterior skin and outfitting the interior with solid-walnut cabinets and a carpeted ceiling.
But even before Dometic hired them, the couple had more than three decades of RVing experience. After they married in 1950, they bought a Spartan trailer, which was their home for three years. Deanie, who was raised in company houses in the “nitty gritty” oil fields of Oklahoma, said the trailer was “beautiful, gorgeous, and it was ours.”
Of course, Bill’s ties to RVs extend back even further. His parents, Art and Toots, bought their first trailer in 1936. Soon after, Art went into the trailer business, and then he started a trailer finance company and an insurance agency. By the early 1960s, having built a reputation as a pioneer in the RV sales industry, he was selling motorhomes.
Bill’s decision to follow in his father’s footsteps was delayed by the Korean War. As a reserve officer with the Army Corps of Engineers, he arrived in the country near the war’s end, and was promoted to company commander of a unit that maintained a key supply route. He returned home in 1955 and started a travel trailer business in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
For most of the next couple of decades, Bill was either selling RVs or building them, as was the case when he ran an RV factory in Longmont, Colorado. He and Deanie bought their first motorhome, a Red Dale, about 1974. Bill and Deanie became FMCA members in 1977, courtesy of Bill’s mother, and joined the Rocky Mountain chapter.
At a convention, the couple met Glen R. Key, who learned of the couple’s wealth of RV experience. When Mr. Key became FMCA national president in 1986, he appointed Bill to FMCA’s Technical Advisory Committee, which reviews technical articles for accuracy and relevancy before they are published in FMCA’s magazine. Bill served on that committee for more than 30 years, an FMCA record for committee service.
FMCA membership number F761G1 belongs to Bill and Deanie’s daughter, Dana Hendrix, and her husband, Eric Hepker.
Bill contributed to the magazine’s “Tech Talk” question-and-answer column for many years. And when he noticed that there was no place for short, reader-submitted items offering helpful technical and travel information, he suggested a new monthly column. “Tech and Travel Tips” debuted in January 1986. Although Bill no longer compiles the column, it continues as “Tech Tips.”
Bill also authored about 100 full-length articles for the magazine, most of them technical in nature. He wrote about refrigerators, of course, but also many other topics, including air conditioners, navigation systems, generators, satellite dishes, ice makers, voltmeters, TV installations, and more. Sometimes, he and Deanie shared a byline. Regardless, “I always (proofread) Bill’s articles before he sent them,” she said.
Bill and Deanie’s son, Brad Hendrix, and his wife, Suzi, travel with FMCA membership number F761G2 affixed to their RV.
They worked hard for many years, but Bill and Deanie also made time for fun. They have owned 11 motorhomes, traveled coast to coast, met many people, and made many friends. While on Dometic’s payroll, they made trips to the company’s factories in Mexico, Luxembourg, Sweden, Germany, and England. They retired in 2006 but continued as contract employees, working a few rallies, for a couple more years. Erie, Colorado, is home.
Bill’s parents have passed away, as have his sister, Betty, and brother-in-law, Edwin. But RVing still runs in the Hendrix family. Dana and her husband and Brad and his wife own towable RVs.
Nobody was happier about FMCA opening its membership to owners of towables than the Hendrix clan. As Deanie pointed out, “Both kids could hardly wait ’til they got that (FMCA) plaque on the back of their RVs, and had (member number) 761 back there.”