Old School took First Place honors in the 2004 and 2005 Pride & Polish.
Had Old School been a student, it would have been flunking when Robert Young paid $4,300 for it in 2003. “It was a basket case,” he says of the 1981 Peterbilt 362 cabover. “We did everything – from stretching the frame to painting it. Me and Lukas built the whole thing from the ground up.”
The painting alone was enough to complicate matters. Father and son selected a yellow used for Ford Mustangs and added green pearl and white ice sparkle. The vibrant yellow helped the rig win First in Cabover Combination at the 2005 Pride & Polish, and First in Cabover Bobtail in 2004. It’s also won Firsts in local shows close to Okemah, Okla., the headquarters of the family’s three-truck fleet, Rokim Transportation.
The casual observer might assume the rig’s name is Chicken King, which is painted atop its ThermoKing reefer. The whimsical tag reflects the fleet’s main freight, frozen chicken.
That isn’t the family’s only line of business. Young’s Paint and Body Shop works on late-model car insurance claims. The Youngs also have a wrecker service and a sign shop.
“We live in a small town,” Young says, “so you got to do a lot of stuff.”
