10-4 Magazine October 2024

70 10-4 Magazine / October 2024 on Monday to take a final picture beside the planter before it was moved to its new home at Steve and Judy Schaalma’s house, which sits along the old parade route near downtown. It was a bittersweet realization for all of them to look at the empty grounds and know that it would not be filled with trucks next year like it had been for the past 35 years. Thank you to the City of Waupun for welcoming trucks and their drivers and families for all these years. So many drivers made this an annual family event, with the kids there helping clean and polish their loved one’s truck or trucks. This show was star ted to help families and has tried to be about the kids all these years. I can testify firsthand to this in talking with the kids that I took to choose the Kid’s Choice this year (and being there all those years). I’ve always said, “There is nothing like little kids and big trucks,” and it’s true, they don’t forget. That arm pump to hear the air horn has not been around for decades because kids did not want to hear it or because drivers did not want to light up the faces of those kids. After all, drivers are just kids who did that same arm pump when they saw a truck, and then they grew up to drive them. The final chapter of the amazing Waupun Truck-N-Show has now been written and the book is closing. The only way to keep the show alive now is by remembering all the good times and the memories it created, and sharing those stories with the future generations. Thank you to all the people who put so much into making this show great and helping so many along the way while doing it, and to all the truckers who made the show possible, because without you, there would not have ever been a show. Sadly, it is over, as we have all taken our last ride in Waupun – but we will never forget. n EDITOR’S NOTE: We would like to thank Nancy Kutschenreuter and Jacob Gunderson for providing and contributing many of the photos for this story. They sent so many pictures, we couldn’t fit them all here on these printed pages. Visit our website (www.tenfourmagazine.com ) to see many more of these photographs they sent, from the final show and older ones, as well, that will be posted there for all to enjoy.