10-4 Magazine September 2023

20 10-4 Magazine / September 2023 the dash, lots of fun stickers, a set of “Moon” foot pedals from the 70s, and a pair of red fuzzy dice. The truck has a factory tilt steering column, black leather seats (which have been munched on a bit by his new dog), stock gray diamond tuck KW upholstery throughout, and a vintage red glitter bicycle grip style shifter knob and matching clutch pedal. Reid hopes to do a little more work in the cab, but he loves driving this truck and has not got bored with it yet! And speaking of his new dog, Reid recently got a puppy to take on the road with him. Bolt (he calls her Bolty) is a six-month old Catahoula, which is a medium-sized hunting breed. She was with him at the photo shoot, and was running around the ranch the entire time, even though it was hot as hell, and there were “goat heads” (super prickly weeds) growing all over the place! Thankfully, because of the very wet winter, these goat heads were still green and not fully matured into the nightmare daggers that they eventually become, which have been known to completely penetrate thick flip flop sandals and even car tires, as well. Even the cattle ranch where we took these pictures is a pretty cool place, with a little 10-4 history, too. The ranch, near Teapot Dome in Por terville, CA, out in the middle of nowhere, was used as a backdrop ten years ago when we shot Pete DeBoer’s 1952 Peterbilt cattle truck and trailer back in 2013. Once again, Mark Pacheco helped us out by getting us permission from the owners and opening all the necessary gates to get us in – he also hung out with us during the shoot and enjoyed being a par t of all the fun. This 150-year-old ranch at one point, back in the mid-1800s, was over 200,000 acres. Today, encompassing about 2,200 acres, the ranch is now owned by a big corporation. When we decided that this September 2023 edition, our special 30th anniversary issue, would be featuring nothing but working 1993 trucks (except for the Mack featured in Trucker Talk), we star ted wracking our brains and calling a few friends, looking for recommendations. One of the people we reached out to was our friend and confidant, and past cover trucker (July 2019), Jake Bast. Jake immediately put a shor t list of good candidates together, and one of those people was Reid. Oddly enough, I had just seen Reid’s KW at the big antique truck show in Reno last June, and for some reason, it really stood out for me amongst the 800+ trucks in attendance (I even put a pic of it in the show repor t). So, when Jake mentioned Reid and his KW, and then told me a little about Reid himself, I was sold. We immediately planned the photo shoot for one of his upcoming trips out west. Being a true owner operator, running under Reid Gerhardt Trucking, Reid pulls a livestock trailer for Kelly Livestock Express out of Fairview, SD. His boss, Kelly Blankespoor, deserves a lot of thanks. Running between the Midwest and California, Reid pulls a 2021 Merritt Livestock trailer with a Canadian spread. Equipped with four decks, Reid can haul everything including pigs, sheep, goats, calves, and full-sized cattle. His typical run has him bringing livestock out west to various processing plants, and calves back, depending on the time of year. Kelly and his company currently have about seven owner operators pulling their trailers. In addition to thanking Kelly Blankespoor, Reid also wanted to thank his friends Cody Stoeklen, Brad Weiler t, and Doug Fairburn for all their help and suppor t over the years. Cody runs a cool slammed purple Peterbilt with a C18 Cat and has helped Reid with many of the projects done to this KW. Brad is a fellow trucker who