Terry Tausz owns two full-size jukeboxes and dozens of miniatures.
Panora resident’s collection includes dozens of miniature jukeboxes and two full-size classics.
By Rich Wicks | Panora Times, October 2025
The purpose of any museum is to keep something “alive” and available for people to experience in the coming years/decades/centuries. Terry Tausz of Panora is passionate about keeping the classic rock and roll music of the 1950s and 1960s alive, and he has accumulated a massive collection of music records, juke boxes, concert posters and other memorabilia.
Tausz explained that his first collection was sports cards and sports autographs, which he accumulated during his junior high and high school years. Tausz spent much of his life in the Rock Rapids area.
During his working years, Tausz was a teacher and volleyball coach. He is now retired and living in Panora to be closer to his daughter, Michelle Recker, and her family. Terry’s wife, Patty, passed away earlier this summer.
As a lifelong fan of early rock and roll music, Tausz gradually began amassing memorabilia from 1950s and 1960s rock and roll performers. His collection now includes records (45s and LPs), band T-shirts, guitars and jukeboxes.
Despite the wide array of music memorabilia Tausz has accumulated, he downplays his collection as just a fun hobby.
“Another guy and I have about 35 signed guitars. Four or five of them are country performers, but the rest are rock and roll,” Tausz said. “I don’t consider myself to be much of a collector. What I’ve got is pretty much small peanuts compared to some collectors. I tend to be a little choosy about what I buy, and I don’t have enough room to display all of the things I have.”
Tausz also collects posters.
“My all-time favorite poster is this Wes Reynolds poster,” Tausz said while holding up the unique poster of the musician.
In the mid-1960s, as rock and roll music was catching on in America, musicians strived to find their niche. Reynolds performed with a band known as The Bloodthirsty Executioners. This may have been a precursor to performers such as Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper, who later used morbid or demonic imagery and costumes to catch the audience’s attention.
Tausz recalled Reynolds’ music and stage presence.
“He’s like Jerry Lee Lewis. He had a couple of different groups. He had the Bloodthirsty Executioners, and he had the House Rockers,” Tausz said. “I guess when he’d play with the Bloodthirsty Executioners, they’d come out in black, with hoods on, looking like they were ready to chop someone’s head off.”
The most unusual part of Tausz’s collection is his jukeboxes. He has dozens of miniature jukeboxes and two full-size classic jukeboxes. One is a 1968 Wurlitzer Americana, while the other is a 1973 Rock-Ola 450. Both jukeboxes still work, and Tausz aims to keep it that way.
“The advice I’ve always gotten from two friends who work on these things is, ‘Play them, play them, play them,’ ” he said. “You need to play them all the time, because the longer they sit, the harder it is on them. I try to play mine every day.”
The Wurlitzer holds 100 45-rpm records (singles) and plays them vertically, while the Rock-Ola holds 80 and plays them horizontally.
Tausz recalled when his first jukebox needed repair, and he was given the contact information for a gentleman who had experience doing so. The two became friends and ended up buying a number of vintage jukeboxes, which they would clean, repair and bring back into working order. They would then offer them for sale to others who wanted to have a nostalgic way to hear early rock and roll.
“We sold a lot of jukeboxes,” Tausz said.
Tausz has amassed many autographed items, including T-shirts, posters and photos. Many collectors have a “Holy Grail” item that they strive to find. For Tausz, he fulfilled that quest years ago.
“That is the Wes Reynolds poster. It’s from about 1965 or 1966,” Tausz said. “To me, that was my Holy Grail.”
Tausz said he is not actively seeking to add to his collection, but he occasionally finds something he wants, or friends will give items to him.
Because of his love of classic rock and roll, Tausz was invited by a friend to become a board member for the South Dakota Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Tausz has never been a musician, so he wasn’t sure at first if he wanted to accept the offer.
“He had been asking me for about six months when I finally agreed to do it. I finally looked at it as one way that I could help keep the music alive. That was important to me,” Tausz said. “I was an active board member from October 2008 to August of 2014. That is a time that I wouldn’t trade for anything.” n
Terry Tausz’s Wurlitzer jukebox plays records vertically.
Terry Tausz has a signed poster from a scary-sounding mid-1960s band.
The Rock-Ola jukebox still works as if it were brand new.
The inside of the 1973 Rock-Ola jukebox is a thing of beauty.