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Toivo Aho is the founder of the Trenary Outhouse Classic. This was his “baby”! More than 20 years ago, Toivo was sitting in the Silver Dollar Bar talking about this outhouse race that was held in Washington State. He told my sister that we should try putting this on in Trenary. We both looked at him like he was a bit crazy! He said it would be a good event to break up the long winter. So, we rounded up more people and had an informal meeting about holding the “1^st Ever Trenary Outhouse Classic” in downtown Trenary. It took us 3 weeks to put it together and it went over with a big “bang”. Right then, Toivo knew it was going to become bigger and bigger and we needed to get back to the drawing board for the “2^nd Ever”!! Toivo was excited and his excitement is what kept us all going strong for the next year’s event.

Toivo was determined to make this winter event one of the largest in the U.P. Everywhere he went, he talked about the races…he was always looking for new ideas and how to make the race a larger, better known event. The first few years the race started out on the sidewalk and eventually had to be moved to the street because of all the racers and spectators. We were lucky enough to have snow banks so high they were used as bleachers. It was just amazing. By the “Turd Ever”, the streets were packed with people and Toivo was the happiest person in town! He was a professional at talking to people and getting them involved in this event. Our committee grew, as did our list of volunteers to help out on race day. It takes a lot of work to put on this event and without the volunteers we couldn’t do it! Toivo never got frantic like we did about getting things done, he would just say, “Don’t worry, it will all come together”. Well, it did, and still is, thanks to a lot of people and Toivo’s sisu!

Toivo just loved to see all the people having such a good time at the races. He especially loved to see what the Munising Girls were going to pull-off every year. They were his biggest stars on the track and we still look forward to seeing them. We all know that Toivo succeeded in making this a big event. We also know that he got his “15 minutes of fame” with his picture on the cover of the Wall Street Journal. He became our town celebrity and was proud as a peacock in accomplishing this. He really put us on the map!!!

Every year on the last Saturday of February, Toivo is looking down from up above saying…”You’re all doing a good job, keep it up”.