OOIDA on the Road — November 2018

Jon Osburn and OOIDA’s touring tractor-trailer, the Spirit of the American Trucker, tours East Coast states this fall before rolling to the Midwest for OOIDA’s annual fall board meeting.

This year OOIDA’s fall board meeting is the week before the week of Thanksgiving. Usually it is in late October, but OOIDA’s 45th anniversary celebration in late September at the Guilty By Association Truck Show in Joplin, Mo., caused the board to think about time management.

“A lot of the board members felt they needed to go back and run their trucks for a couple of weeks between the show and the board meeting,” Jon said.

On his sojourns, Jon has been discussing with the drivers some of the issues sure to be at the top of the agenda for the board meeting, such as progress on hours of service reform, the trucks-only toll increases on the Indiana Toll Road, and OOIDA’s success ending the requirement for truckers with diabetes to get an exemption to operate in interstate commerce.

Before the board meeting, Jon will set up The Spirit at the Kenly 95 truck stop in Kenly, N.C. Part of the Iowa 80 Group, the Kenly 95 added a large truck show room in 2016.

“I haven’t been there since the expansion, so I am looking forward to seeing what all they have done,” Jon said.

After the board meeting, The Spirit heads to Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

This fall’s stop at the Jim Wilcox TA Travel Center in Albuquerque, N.M., is a first for The Spirit. That stop was scheduled because of a request, and Jon said he was looking forward to investigating it. LL

Senior Member Jon Osburn has been an OOIDA member since 1993. A former longtime owner-operator, Jon has also worked as a paramedic and a Navy hospital corpsman. He lives with his wife, Vicki, in Boise, Idaho, and travels with his loyal co-pilot, Sassi the dog.