Driven To Build

Last month we mentioned that we were planning on sharing Part 2 of our “Treasure in Vegas” story this month.  Part 1 was about Sheri Goldstrom and her family’s neat museum there.  Part 2 will tell the story about Sheri’s father, Art Goldstrom, and how he was such an important part of the changing face of Las Vegas today.  We were hoping to talk to Art and get stories he had to share for this month’s story, but sadly, on March 6th, Art passed away.  We will be going to his celebration of life in May to talk to his family and friends and learn more about all the amazing things this man did.  Look for this story to run in a few months.  Our condolences go out to Sheri and her entire family.

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For this month, we moved up our story about our friend Amy Wright.  The saying “things happen for a reason” rings true here.  Amy posted a picture of a model of the Smokey and the Bandit truck and trailer, and John had just been watching the movie the night before.  When I reached out to Amy to ask her if she had built any more models, she told me that she had built 224 trucks and 47 trailers!  And her story is amazing!!

Born into a trucking family, Amy’s lifelong dream was to drive a truck.  But for her, that could never be, because she was born with spina bifida, a birth defect in which a baby’s spinal cord fails to develop properly.  This condition left Amy paralyzed from her arms down since birth.  We take so much for granted sometimes, but seeing someone like Amy, who lives on her own despite her challenges, is truly inspirational.

Growing up watching all the old trucking movies and shows like Smokey and the Bandit, Convoy, Movin’ On, and BJ and the Bear, just to mention a few, Amy’s favorite is a 1979 made for TV movie called “Willa” (I am sad to say I had to look it up because I didn’t know it).  The movie is about a woman whose mom is a drunk and her husband has abandoned her.  She has two kids and works as a waitress during the day and loads produce at night in exchange for truck-driving lessons.  She is determined to become a truck driver and lets no obstacles get in her way.

Amy’s mom told her that she fell in love with trucks when she was about three or four years old.  Back then, she didn’t play with dolls, but she did have an extensive collection of semi-trucks.  Even though she would never be able to drive a truck it didn’t lessen her love for them.  So, her parents started buying her 1:32 scale box models in the 80s.  When she was about 14, she progressed to the 1:24 scale glue together type of models.  Unfortunately, Amy’s mom passed away when she was just 16 years old.

After being in the hospital with pneumonia when she was six years old, she got her first truck ride home in a GMC Astro, pulling a 40’ bull rack.  Her dad Bill Wright was a trucker, and so was her Uncle Ted.  Uncle Ted and Aunt Jean owned and operated a small fleet of trucks.  Her dad was her hero and lived near her during the last ten years of his life before he passed away in 2022.  She was thankful to spend a lot of time with him during those last few years.

Being a very independent woman, Amy got her own apartment in 1997, and she has been on her own ever since.  She can get herself in and out of bed, but she has people come in Monday through Friday to help her with house cleaning, shopping, showering, taking her to doctor appointments, and making meals for her to warm up on the weekends when she is alone.  Around Christmas in 2020 she got a companion – a cat she named Diesel.  This cat loves attention and is happy to do lots of cuddling.

Living close enough to a highway, on nice days she can sit and watch the trucks go by and enjoy being outside.  Her friend Donna took her to the truck pulls last August in Coldwater, MI, which is near where she lives.  Our friend Cara Metzger took her to the truck show in Tecumseh, MI in September of 2023.  Special thanks to Cara for sharing some of her pictures for this story.

Our friend Todd Campbell got to meet Amy when he was spending a little time with his friend Troy in Michigan.  Todd and Amy have been friends on Facebook for quite some time and Troy, who lives near her, has been her friend for a long time.  Troy and Todd decided to stop by Amy’s apartment for a visit.  Todd said she was proud to show him her truck models.  Troy owns and operates one of Amy’s favorite rigs – a beautiful International Transtar Brougham.  She told us that Internationals are her favorite truck because they were the trucks that her family owned.  Thank you, Todd, for sharing some of your pictures.

Most of the models that Amy has built are beautifully displayed in her apartment on the walls and in 3-foot by 6-foot bookcases.  Her favorite model of them all is her International Transtar 4300 Brougham.  When Amy mentioned that she has got parts from other model builders, we asked if she knew our friend Christian Chapson from France and she said, “Yes!  I’ve got parts from him.”  Trucking really is a small world.  We wrote about Christian and his custom truck models back in May 2022.

Going to the Mid-America Truck Show and Walcott Truckers Jamboree are on her bucket list, and we hope that we can help with making both of those things happen.  If everything goes right, Cara is planning on taking Amy up to the Richard Crane Memorial Truck Show this September in St Ignace, MI.  We have been to that show twice, and it is a spectacular location.  Hopefully, it will work out one day that her friend Troy can take her for a truck ride.

Recently, Amy built a model for our friend Bill Kruger, and she has plans to build him another one soon, of one of his other trucks.  She has also custom built a model for Renee Anderson, and she is excited to tackle John’s famous purple Kenworth truck and trailer to sit next to the one Christian built for him.  Although she is unable to ever drive a truck, Amy Wright is driven to build them, and that is pretty cool.