Trucker Buddy

Trucker Buddy News- Students Get a Taste of Racing

How do you convince a five-year-old to eat Cheerios for breakfast? You bring the cereal to school along with the Cheerios race car!

The students in Deann Kidd’s class at Sedge Garden Elementary in Kernersville, NC are thrilled when their Trucker Buddy drivers, Jerry and Ann Rierson, visit their school. Jerry and Ann are company drivers for Richard Petty Enterprises, where they haul race cars around the country for NASCAR events.

The Riersons adopted the kindergarten class after learning about the Trucker Buddy program at the Great American Truck Show in Dallas. Since then, they have not only sent the children cereal, but also hats, posters, badges, toy cars and T-shirts autographed by Richard Petty.

Maggie is a student in Kidd’s class, and her parents are so impressed with Jerry and Ann’s influence on the class that they “are beginning to get interested” in NASCAR because of their daughter’s friendship with the Trucker Buddy drivers.
The children are learning to write and enjoy writing thank-you notes and entries about the Cheerios car in their journal. Kidd is thrilled. “It’s incredible,” says Kidd, noting that students who resisted writing before are now filling up their journals.
One of the student’s parents described the interaction between the drivers and the class by writing, “With each visit, the children are awakened to the big world outside of their class by two people who care.”

Jerry and Ann Rierson live in Belews Creek, NC and are two of nearly 4,000 drivers who share their time with elementary classes throughout the world. Professional over-the-road drivers who are willing to send a postcard each week
to a class in grades two through eight are eligible for the Trucker Buddy program. You can learn more about the program by visiting www.truckerbuddy.org or calling 1-800-MY BUDDY.

The Riersons will receive personalized jackets, along with a check for $300 to spend on the class and $200 in Trucker Buddy merchandise. Over the Road and Pro Trucker magazines are proud sponsors of the Trucker Buddy program.