Let the Memories Live On
By Kelly Lubker, Heartland Classics Chapter
Becky Bornmueller (Skip’s wife/
Kelly’s mom) and Roy Bornmueller (Skip’s
father and Kelly’s grandfather) enjoying
Lake of the Ozarks, 1969.
The family boat was originally purchased brand-new in 1967 by Roy & Bernice Bornmueller (Skip’s parents and Kelly’s grandparents). Unfortunately, the lower unit on the motor blew up in 1989 and we had to sell the boat. We had no idea what happened to the boat UNTIL…
It was found 30+ years later!
In the summer of 2020, Kelly was skimming through Facebook Marketplace and stumbled upon a boat that looked just like her childhood boat. After taking a closer look at it, we could not believe it was our actual old boat. The boat had been sitting in the woods on some acreage rotting away for 10+ years just a few miles from Kelly’s home in Wildwood, MO!
The boat was in pretty bad shape and it was going to take extensive work to even be able to get it on the water again. But how many times in your life do you have a chance to bring back a piece of your childhood? Soooo…. Kelly purchased the boat for $60!
Ironically, the boat still had the same seats we had and the white ski was our old ski we sold with the boat all those years ago. There was so much mud caked on the bottom of the boat and I’m sure it was home to many animals over the years. The boat still had the original windshield with the crack in it and the old safety check sticker from the year Kelly was born…1975!
One of the first projects was scraping all the mud and old, rotted flooring out of the bottom of the boat. In October of 2020 the boat was taken to Farmer’s Fiberglass in Roxana, IL for the fiberglass repair work. Due to losing employees, the shop did not have anyone to work on the boat. After some months, Skip decided to start doing the work himself at Farmer’s Fiberglass. He ended up doing 90% of the work himself! There were areas on the boat that must have been damaged in a prior boat accident that had to be repaired. There was also significant damage to the bottom of the boat.
Skip and Kelly came up with a design to make the side panels for inside of the boat. Skip made everything from scratch. The boat did not have a motor in it when purchased. Kelly found a guy on eBay that rebuilds old boat motors and re-sells them. Kelly had the same motor put on the boat as it had the last time they owned it. She even had them mimic the decals.
Kelly decided to name the boat the “Little Skipper” after her dad. When he was a young boy, he had a boat named that as well. The boat is owned by both Kelly and her father, Skip. Neither could have completed this project without the other. What an amazing transformation!
