10-4 Magazine December 2024

64 10-4 Magazine / December 2024 They say you can’t go back in time, but in your mind you can – to a time when you were a kid, didn’t have adult responsibilities, and began to form your hopes and dreams for the future. With a fleet of toy trucks when he was little, Klayton Keesling (40) has always been crazy about trucks, and he loved riding with his uncle in his Kenworth K100 whenever possible. Fast forward to today, with those childhood memories inspiring his longing and the eventual purchase of his own K100, Klayton is reliving those days gone by. Growing up in the rural town of Saint John, KS where everyone knew each other, Klayton’s love of trucks only grew by hanging out at his uncle Tim’s farm as a kid. Tim owned two Kenworth cabovers, and Klayton has very fond memories of being able to ride in them, on the doghouse, going down the road. Throughout the years, Klayton worked on the farm and learned how to drive, not only from his uncle, but also his father Kurt, who did a little trucking in the oilfields back in the day. Although Klayton’s grandfather did not truck, his great grandfather was a trucker from the 1930s to the 1980s. After graduation in 2003, Klayton was awarded scholarships for playing football and pole vaulting, which he took advantage of at McPherson College in McPherson, KS. He went to college for two years, majoring in Environmental Stewardship, but football beat him up pretty badly. Four concussions later, he was encouraged to do something other than football and ended up transferring to Fort Hayes State University. Klayton joined the rodeo team and started studies in agriculture with continued thoughts of coming back to the farm in Saint John. Not returning to Saint John like he initially thought, Klayton took a job with a company in Ulysses, KS working as an agronomist (soil management and crop production). And once the farmers found out that Klayton could drive a truck, he had plenty of extra work on the nights and weekends during harvest season. During one of his visits back to Saint John, he was reacquainted with a beautiful brunette named Lyndi in 2010, they were married on October 6, 2012, and then Lyndi joined Klayton in Ulysses. In 2013, they moved to Gerard, KS, next to a little manmade lake in Crawford State Park that, coincidentally, his great grandfather helped dig. In 2014, Klayton began driving full-time, pulling an end dump for about a year and a half, then worked on a farm, The Diesel Addict: By Stephanie Haas driving for them until his family moved back to Saint John in 2017. The move brought him back to his roots, working on his uncle’s farm, and during that time, he bought an old Peterbilt 362 cabover with plans of fixing it up. However, when his wife Lyndi got pregnant, Klayton changed his mind on that project, and instead decided to stay on with the farm so he could be home. Then, a few years later, a Facebook listing caught Klayton’s eye. There was a K100 Kenworth for sale in Filley, NE that looked a lot like what he grew up around, and he wanted to go check it out. After seeing the truck and talking to the owner, Mark Busboom, they worked out a deal, and on March 16, 2019, Klayton brought the truck home. A few months later, he started Keesling Trucking, and began working that K100, hauling hay with a stepdeck, both locally and hauling dairy hay out to Indiana. Out of Indiana, he would reload steel at the Port of Indiana and bring it back to Kansas. When hay was slow, he would run cattle, as well. The truck is a 1984 Kenworth K100C. Originally purchased with a 855 Cummins Big Cam IV and a 13-speed RTO 14613 transmission, it now has a Caterpillar 1LW 3406E and a 13-speed RTLO 18913A, as well as 3.73 rears, and rides on a factory 245” wheelbase. The truck sports an aftermarket Goldwing bumper, 7-inch Lincoln Chrome exhaust and intake, and a factory visor. It was ordered brand-new as a straight truck with a box, which is why it has the factory 245” wheelbase. The pinstriping and vinyl on the truck was done by Mark’s Custom Signs in Great Bend, KS. Like any new owner operator should, Klayton did his homework to find a company with a good reputation to CHILDHOOD MEMORIES