By auctioning off each of its projects once they’re completed, the Harrison Elementary School Tractor Club can use the proceeds to move on to rebuilding its next tractor.

The third tractor the club has  reassembled since 2013 is up for auction now until the end of March. It is a Wheel Horse B80 4-Speed 1976.

“The whole purpose (of creating the club) was to have the kids learn what basic tools are and learn how to work with their hands and be able to not be afraid of trying to fix something. And it doesn’t have to be tractors, but this is a great avenue for them to get their hands wet and just learn some basic skills, learn what the proper name of the tools are and how they work and what they’re used for. Just trying to create a hands-on experience for kids. I feel like it’s kind of become a lost art,” said Scott Mehlberg, club advisor and Harrison teacher.

Once the tractor is done, it’s put up for a silent bid auction. Individuals who are interested in bidding on the tractor can contact Harrison and place a bid via envelope or call the school and find out instructions.



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Bids have to be over $500 and can be sent to Harrison, attention Scott Mehlberg, at 1300 Husky Trail, Warsaw, IN 46582. Mehlberg can be contacted by phone at 574-269-7533 or email at [email protected].

“At the end of March, it is our hope to open up all the envelopes. Whoever has the highest bid will be the new owner of the tractor,” Mehlberg said. “All those funds that we raise from the sale of the tractor goes to pay for the next project. So we are looking for a sizable bid and we are looking for anyone that’s willing to be a personal sponsor or a corporate sponsor to help kind of cover a lot of the costs for these machines.”

He said it’s expensive for the tools and the supplies for the kids to go through this program, and the tractor club is completely funded through donations, not through the school corporation.

The first tractor the club rebuilt, a 1976 Wheel Horse C-120, sold for $1,100 in 2015. “Which was huge in helping us have a fund to continue keep moving forward,” Mehlberg said.

The club is already working on its next project, too, but it won’t be auctioned off. It is redoing Kurt Miller’s tractor for the Miller family.

Kurt died in 2015 at 17 as a result of an accident in which he was pulled under a garden tractor. He was a junior firefighter for the Burket Volunteer Fire Department and actively involved in the Tippecanoe Valley FFA and Beaver Dam 4-H Club.

“Obviously we are not selling that one. We need sponsorship because what we put into that we don’t get back out of that except for doing the right thing and helping a family,” Mehlberg said. “It’s a great way for kids to give back.”

For many of the club’s members, this has been their first year in the organization. They haven’t worked on the 1976 tractor as much as the older members, like Lakeview Middle School seventh-grader Jonathan Gottschalk or Warsaw Community High School freshman Thomas Coulter.

Zachary Mehlberg, a Harrison third-grader, has been in the club for five years. He’s the son of Scott, who developed the club with his father.

For Zachary, what he enjoys most about it is, “That we get to have friends and do stuff together.” He enjoys putting the tractor back together, especially “screwing the bolts on the tractor.”

Fifth-grader Jolene Zambrano is the only girl in the club but said she enjoys “a lot of things” about the club. She said she’s never done anything before like reassembling a tractor. “That’s why I wanted to try it out and see how it goes.”

Jason Neibert, fifth-grader, said he was “learning how to build a tractor and more about tractors.” He said it was a challenge to put the tractor together but enjoyed “working together, putting most of the tractor together and taking it apart.”