Show On The Road - January 2011
WELL-EARNED STRIPES
BY TRUCK DRIVER & WRITER BRYAN WELSH
Happy New Year to everybody – we hope that you all made it home safely to your families for the holidays! To most of us, nothing beats a good home-cooked Christmas dinner, spending time with our friends and families, and putting up the tree. I usually get lucky enough to sneak off after dinner for a quick nap in my chair while the others get stuck doing the dishes! However, taking the Christmas tree down, that is a whole different story – that’s where my nap ends!
This year, after hauling our tree down to the shop burn pile, I headed out to Sweet Home, Oregon to meet with Blair Reynolds – I figured this month would be a perfect time to introduce you to a cool log hauler. It’s easy to assume that Blair has made a fine art out of being a log truck owner operator over the years because he has always rolled around in very nice Kenworths. Over the last three decades, the specs on his Kenworths may have changed, but one thing has always remained the same – his stripes.
Blair grew up throughout the 1970’s glued to his dad’s hip. His dad Ed owned a logging company so, naturally, by the time Blair was big enough to pack his own tools out of the crummy (their crew-cab maintenance pickup), he was more than eager to get up to the log landings with his dad to help maintain and repair all of the logging equipment. Blair enjoyed mechanics, so after graduating from high school he underwent a two year diesel tech program. By June of 1983, Blair decided that he just had to have a nice log truck and there was only one paint scheme he wanted – red and black with a gold-outlined red stripe. So, with a fresh coat of red and black paint, Blair was off and running with a beautiful 1977 Kenworth A-Model.
In the early 1980’s, logging was booming and things were going great for Blair, until 1986 when a tragic logging accident took his dad’s life. Dealing with such a great pain and the loss of his best friend, Blair had to take everything his dad taught him and carry-on the family business. At this point, Blair got out of the driver’s seat and, together with his mom Jean, assumed his dad’s role of running the company, operating the loading equipment up on the landings, doing the billing and payroll, and handling all of the other office duties. The next eight years were tough at times, but thanks to good friends like Jerry, Jim and John Tack (brothers) of Tack Logging, those tough times were made a little easier.
Tack Logging was known to have some of the flashiest log trucks around, so it was no real surprise in 1993 when Blair, inspired by his friends at Tack, sold some of the company’s logging equipment and bought another log truck of his own again. From then on, Blair has been back in the driver’s seat, doing what he loves the most. Blair ordered his latest 2006 Kenworth W900L in his “signature” colors – black and red with a gold-outlined stripe. He even had the pleasure of sitting in the cab while it rolled down the assembly line at the Kenworth plant in Seattle, Washington on its build day.
Blair has a pretty big family to thank, which includes his wife Lorri and their kids, Katie, Sarah, Casey, Kyle, Nick and Holley. From the early 1980’s until today, all of Blair’s trucks have always worn the same colors and stripes, and the same can be said about Blair’s dedication to his dad’s legacy and their family’s name. Throughout the years, with plenty of hard work, pride, strength and determination, Blair Reynolds has certainly earned his stripes – literally and figuratively – and we are happy to acknowledge that fact here. Thanks, Blair – keep it up!