Trucker Talk: By John & Kim Jaikes This year at the Mid-America Truck Show (MATS) in Louisville, KY my late friend Bette Garber was honored on the MATS Wall of Fame for her contributions to the trucking industry. Along with that honor, the first “Bette Garber Memorial Award” was chosen and handed out, too. Bette did not just love the pretty big trucks, she loved the people who drove them, as well. Her famous saying she told the drivers she met was, “I can’t make you rich, but I can make you famous,” and she did exactly that, with a plethora of drivers and their trucks over the years. Her career started in the mid-70s. She put a CB in her van so she wouldn’t be alone while traveling for her job with the company she and her husband owned. She started talking to drivers and became fascinated with the trucks and the people who drove them. When things changed at the company and she divorced, she dipped her toe in the water and started writing for Mother Trucker News. Her degree in journalism helped propel her into this cool new endeavor. Photography was self-taught so she was able to put pictures with her stories. When they closed their doors, she took a dive into the deep end and continued her writing with American Trucker and became an Olympic swimmer in this profession, later moving on to Road Star, until the end of her career. Bette met D Atkinson at the PA Truck Rodeo in 1977. It was here that D won the women’s division. She didn’t ask permission and they didn’t deny her entering the men’s division, as well. I’m sure they thought it would be funny to beat a woman, but the joke was on them when she took third place in the division. Bette asked if she could take pictures when D went to the office to pick up her award. A lifelong friendship began that day, and later, Bette would invite her to go along with her on many adventures. One of those adventures was going to Atlanta Motor Speedway to cover the first truck race there, and they also just happened to be filming the race for the Smokey and the Bandit II movie. Taking pictures during the race while tied in the back of a pickup truck going around the track, this gave Bette the opportunity to capture images you just can’t from the sidelines. Her friend D also had the chance of a lifetime, talking to Jerry Reed, while perched on the side of his GMC General, and Bette got photos of not only the conversation, but the kiss she received, as well. Bette was well versed in so many things, be it cosmetics, the ins and outs of the fashion industry, and business management. She used that talent and got Maybellene to sponsor her doing “makeovers” for a few of the women drivers at the Walcott Truckers Jamboree for several years. This is where I met Bette – at the Walcott Truckers Jamboree in 1990 – which was the first truck show I ever attended. Much like the friendship she started with D at the truck rodeo, we hit it off and became lifelong friends, as well. Sadly, D and I never got to meet each other until after Bette had passed. We are both very thankful for the friendship we have today, and that never would have happened without Bette (the picture we took with Bette’s picture on the Wall of Fame was the first time the three of us were ever together). D and I accepted the award at her induction to the Wall of Fame ceremony because, between the two of us, we covered her entire career (D in her early years and me until she had gone to her last show, shot her last calendar, and wrote her last story). Bette shot everything, not just pretty big show trucks. Many summers she would park her van in our driveway and spend a few weeks after the Walcott Truckers Jamboree, riding with us back and forth to California, shooting stock photography of all kinds for her business Highway Images. Her van made a bold statement everywhere it went. Bette spent a week in Grand Rapids, MI with Scott Bouma of Scott’s Signs, who is a master with an airbrush, and he made some very special transformations to Bette’s van. After that, people really knew who she was, and her van became part of her signature. After Bette passed, Scott had a sticker designed that includes a picture that is so her, with her bandanna, her killer smile, her famous saying, and her signature from a picture she gave me many years ago. That sticker is still used in Bette’s “Out of the Archives” feature here in 10-4 each month, and it was also used on her memorial award trophy, too. Drivers would pose fueling their trucks, loading and unloading on docks, and rolling down the highway (she loved to get trucks rolling down the road with mountains as the backdrop). We stood 68 10-4 Magazine / May 2026 HONORING BETTE
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