Do you Hate Jb Hunt

Back in the late 80's I worked at the Denver West 76 Truck Stop and we had a big bulletin board for drivers to leave messages, notes for other drivers and some advertisement, this is how some drivers communicated with others before cell phones. Someone posted a note on their after a bad snow storm that said: Wanted One JB Hunt driver to check road conditions west on I-70 if you make it to the other side please call back to truck stop. Their were a lot of JB Jokes on the radio back then which the radio was alive and buzzin back in those days.

When we would get a new girl working the fuel desk we would go to the pay phone and call the fuel desk watching to make sure she answered and then would have her page JB Hunt driver Mike Hunt, it always came different over the loud speaker and then after she did that one of the others girl would tell her what we had done. Another one we would do is we would check inside the truck stop to see if there were some JB drivers hanging out together and we would call and have the fuel desk get on the intercom and say "Will the JB Hunt driver please move your truck. It was funny for us just to watch their faces. What can I say we were 18 and thought it was funny.

One day it all changed because the JB jokes just wasn't funny anymore when I seen a JB driver die in the cab of his truck waiting on an ambulance. I was working the day shift and went in to eat lunch and sit by a couple in there early 50's. Him wearing the JB Hunt uniform and her nicely dressed. (No pajama bottoms, flip flops, etc.... back then) After lunch I went back to the fuel island and I seen them walk to the middle row. In the fuel shack we had a hand held CB radio and it was slow and I was sitting there listening to all the BS going on and I heard a womens voice screaming on the radio asking for help her husband was having a heart attack please call an ambulance. Everyone kept on bsing and ignoring her. I tried to ask where she was but a hand held is not going to get out much over the big radios. Finally she said she was in a JB Hunt truck in the middle of the parking lot and was still trying to get someone to help here. I called the fuel desk on the intercom and told them to call an ambulance while I ran looking for the truck. I took the hand held with me and all I was hearing was JB Hunt jokes and rude comments. I found them and she had both doors of the cabover open and was screaming for help, her husband was in the drivers seat laid over onto the dog house. Their were three or four drivers standing around at a distance just watching. My co worker that went with me ran back up to direct the ambulance while I stayed with them trying to help as much as I could. I really felt bad for that lady that day, JB hunt jokes were still coming over the CB along with rude comments about what was going on. When the ambulance, fire truck and police arrived thats when the drivers all started coming around and was wanting to know what happen. It was a little to late.

I never ever worked for them but their drivers were professionally dressed back then and for a OTR van company JB had the highest pay at the time. And when all the big outfits were and still are hiring students like mad JB quit hiring them and went to experience drivers only. You don't see all the JB trucks on the road know days as you did back then I guess because of the train shipments and more into the dedicated accounts. You still see a #### load of SWIFT instead.