KTA DRIVER SPOTLIGHT Richard “Wayne” Crowder HANGING UP THE KEYS After 41 years behind the wheel and a total of 4.2 million miles logged, Richard “Wayne” Crowder is retiring his CB handle, RC, and hanging up the keys. Some people fall into their careers, finding their place after a long, windy road. For Wayne, however, he always felt drawn to this industry. “As a kid, I always wanted to be a truck driver. I can’t tell you how many times I went to California from Kentucky on the front porch of my house while playing trucks,” Wayne said with a smile. “This is just what I wanted to do. I always wanted to drive a truck.” Around the age of 19, Wayne bought a used truck from Frito Lay, painted it and embarked on the journey he felt destined for. Recalling his first trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Jersey City, New Jersey, “When I got to Jersey City, I thought to myself, ‘What was I thinking? What have I done?’ But here I am 41 years later, getting ready to hang the keys up, it’s been a pretty good ride,” Wayne said. Wayne delivered various loads from automotive parts to diapers, baby formula and first-aid kits. Even though he started out by hauling smaller loads, he had an understanding of the importance of his work — keeping cars running and babies fed and cleaned. In 1994, Wayne started driving for FedEx Freight, known at the time as “American Freightways.” As a FedEx Freight driver, Wayne frequently found himself hauling loads weighing around 30,000 or more pounds of freight every day, over long distances. He quickly learned to know everything about his equipment and adapt to the environment in order to drive safely on the road. And to this day, he lives by this motto: Safety by choice, not by chance. In 2004, a friend of Wayne’s, Bill Haycraft, approached Wayne with a stack of filled-out paperwork and asked Wayne to sign it. “What am I signing?” Wayne asked Bill. “Just sign the paper,” Bill told him. So Wayne signed his name and found out that he had just signed up for the Truck Driving Championships (TDC) competition. Wayne did not think that he had what it took to compete, but Bill saw something that he didn’t see in himself. Thrown into the competition, Wayne depended on help from his peers to teach him what to do and eventually help him towards victory. With a win 14 | Kentucky Trucker
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODQxMjUw