Highway Angels

Small act of compassion makes big impression

On Feb. 4, 2009, two sisters driving along I-64 in Kentucky felt their tire blow out. It was snowing heavily, and their car slid off the road. With a sinking feeling, they realized that the spare tire in their trunk was equally flat.
     Larry Goessens, a driver for Anderson Trucking Service of St. Cloud, MN stopped to help the sisters. First, he pulled the car out of the ditch. Then he drove to the next town, had the spare tire repaired, returned to the scene and replaced the flat tire with the spare.
     Rhonda Davis, one of the women helped by Goessens, was extremely impressed by his random act of kindness. She even took the time to write a letter to Anderson Trucking Service, stating: “This may not be a big deal to some people, but you would not believe how many people just drove right by me, standing on the side of the road…it was snowing to beat the dickens, and I am an old lady!…It was as if God himself sent this man to help me.”
     Deborah Sparks, a spokeswoman for Highway Angels, said that Davis’ letter reinforces what the TCA has believed since it first initiated the program: that truck drivers’ random acts of kindness on the highways – no matter how minor – provide the best possible publicity for the trucking industry.
     “Now that Ms. Davis’ life has been positively touched by a professional truck driver, she will probably tell her friends and family, who will in turn come away with a positive impression of drivers and trucking,” Sparks said. “They will tell someone, who will tell someone. It is this type of grass-roots goodwill that Highway Angels hopes to foster, and we do our part to keep the momentum going by releasing positive driver stories to local hometown newspapers and other media outlets.”