10-4 Magazine October 2021

10-4 Magazine / October 2021 81 slides were loaded up in her trailer and taken to Mark’s house. He so generously offered to scan, categorize, and organize her entire body of work. This project will take years, as there are likely over 100,000 slides. But Mark has the love, passion, and time it will take to complete this monumental task. He also knew Bette and understands how important it is to preserve her body of work for the future generations in trucking. Those of us who knew Bette all loved her and her passion for capturing not only the trucks but the people who loved them and made them so beautiful. She would shoot and talk to a company driver the same as she would the owner operator – just ask “The Boston Trucker” Mike Gaffin. Her famous saying was, “I can’t make you rich, but I can make you famous.” That statement proved to be true, for many drivers like Mike, who are still out there driving today. I can’t believe she has been gone for almost 13 years. Her work is timeless and needs to be preserved and shared, and Mark is going to make sure that happens. His plan is to scan each slide and put together folders, organized into various categories. Some of her favorite pictures were the ones she called “artsy fartsy” shots, so there will be a category for those, for sure. Mark will enlist the help of people who knew Bette and her work to help identify as many images as possible so the collection will be as complete as possible – and live on. We often wonder why some things happen the way they do. If Mark’s tragic accident didn’t happen, like the rest of us, he wouldn’t have the time to do this and get it done right. God has a way of making good things happen, even from a tragedy. When this project is finally finished, Mark Harter will be responsible for preserving some amazing photos and important information, and leave his own “mark” in trucking history. n One of Bette’s “Artsy Fartsy” Photographs Mark and the boxes of slides