10-4 Magazine / July 2025 71 Van Engle Produce in Milwaukee, WI. I remember making check calls to this one and he did not like women. I always said, for those of us who ran team, that we were half the reason his freight got delivered on time! Bosselman’s in Grand Island, NE was a popular stop, especially when they had their prime rib buffet on Saturday nights. Roger said he still likes to sit and talk to people. It’s not as easy as it used to be, but sometimes you can strike up a conversation with a few drivers and take a little trip down memory lane. In 1991 Roger got a conventional Freightliner for his son Chris and wanted to lease it back on to Freymiller, but their insurance wouldn’t cover Chris, who had just turned 21. At the time, Packerland would insure Chris, so they leased the 1986 black Classic XL with a 50” flat top bunk on with them. She had a B-Model CAT, a 13-speed, and straight pipes that dad hated on the occasions that they got to run team. Chris said they worked hard but had a lot of fun. He had been riding with his dad, and in his younger years, he basically grew up in a truck. Running the old cabover local for a while, Roger eventually put her in the weeds. It needed a fuel pump and some other work and at the time they didn’t think it was worth it. He bought a 1995 T600 with a 3406E CAT and a 13-speed to haul grain locally. It was an old Millis truck and funny thing is he still has it and it’s the truck he still runs today. When I asked Roger if he just runs local now he said, “No, it’s long haul or nothing.” In 1998 Chris bought his first milk route and in 2003 he got his own authority. But he got tired of the same old routine and got back on the road in 2005. His dad put him back to work in a new 2006 white Peterbilt with a coffin bunk, hauling Dean’s Foods products east. This truck was Wyatt’s introduction to trucking. Getting strapped in the passenger seat in his car seat, he got to follow his dad’s baby steps and cut his teeth riding in a truck with his dad. One time Chris remembers being in Big Springs, NE and Roger happened to stop there and parked next to him. When Wyatt looked over and saw his grandpa he asked his dad, “How did grandpa find us so far from home?” In 2008 Chris was at home and he needed to move a trailer, and the only option was that old gray cabover out in the weeds. He jumped the batteries, and she started, and after a little bit of work with parts they had laying around, they brought her back to life and she got to get out of the weeds and back on the road. She was a work in progress for a couple years and even got to stretch out to a 240” wheelbase. In the spring they haul starter kits for honeybees from California to Wisconsin, Kentucky and Ohio. They revamped a reefer trailer with fans to pull in the fresh air and keep the circulation going. They’ve been doing this for about 15 years. One might think that after riding in a truck, Wyatt would go down the same road as his grandpa and his dad, but that’s not the case. When he was young, Wyatt was always treated like a little man and hung around the older guys. At about five years old, there was a local polisher that Wyatt admired, and at eight years old he got his first buffer kit. When he was 13, Wyatt went to work for him, and by the time he was 15, he started making his mark on the truck show scene with some amazing polishing skills. Taking pride in the job he does and the shine he puts on whatever he polishes, Wyatt can buff a truck out to a mirror finish, but he can drive it, too. Although driving is not the road he chose, Wyatt recently bought his first truck. After hounding the owner for nearly a year, he finally gave him a price, and the truck is extra special because it’s “Old 807” – his grandpa’s 1980 KW cabover, which had been parked in the shop, taking advantage of a little retirement, since 2010. With plans to leave the faded gray paint job with bits of Freymiller blue peeking out here and there alone, Wyatt does not want to strip her down and cover her with some pretty new coat of paint. The interior has always been maintained, so it’s being left pretty much the same, too. She did get a new retro steering wheel since the original one was cracked from age, and Wyatt put his magic buffer to the wheels. His plans are to let her strut her stuff at local parades and truck shows. Like this old truck, Wyatt and his dad and grandfather can share three generations of miles and memories, and we sure enjoyed being a part of it – and sharing some of ours, too. n
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