Just how much can one truck driver accomplish when he truly makes an effort in his own community? As the 22nd-annual Wheel Jam Truck Show in Huron, South Dakota, approaches June 5-8 at the state fairgrounds, the life and legacy of Scot Marone suggests, well, a lot more than you’d think.
The story begins over beers in South Dakota somewhere around 2002.
'That first year we had nine trucks'
The crew behind the Wheel Jam Truck Show
The local fairground “wasn’t getting used very much," recalled longtime Wheel Jam General Manager Rich Barnes (pictured above in front row, fourth from left). “Scot and I and Jerry Johnson, Scott Shrewsberry, bunch of us guys would sit around and drink a little beer once in a while" and talk about putting on a truck show.
Time came that Marone was at a Chamber of Commerce meeting with a woman named Peggy Besch. "They were figuring out what they could do at the fair," as Rich Barnes told it. "Scot says, ‘Why don’t you do a truck show?’ Peggy says, ‘You’re it!’ That first year we had nine trucks. Mostly guys from around here.”
A group of volunteers was raised who would come to be known as The Village, a multigenerational ragtag core of local truck show aficionados. Collectively, they would donate thousands of man hours per year.
What the show has grown into, according to Huron mayor Mark Robish, would transform the entire region around the city.
“It all started with the truck show," Robish said. “Scot Marone, he started the vision.” The show grew into a multi-faceted regional event. Today, Wheel Jam features not only a truck show but a "car show, a motorcycle show, a barbecue competition, the winner of which goes on to Kansas City to compete in the nationals.”
Huron Mayor Mark Robish
"We’ve got three big [events] in Huron," Robish said. "One is the state fair. Then you’ve got the pheasant hunting. (We’ve actually got the best pheasant hunting in the world.) Then you’ve got Wheel Jam. It’s grown to hundreds of trucks." As many as 11,000 people a day attend the show. "We’ve got a thousand campsites. People [come] from all over the United States. They’ve got trucks from as far away as Florida.
"When you see a big shiny truck, that’s nice, but what does that truck do? That’s what Scot wanted people to see. We’re proud of our blue-collar people, here. The ag industry and trucking are big around here.”
Robish, for his part, still works as a dispatcher for the truck line NTA Limited, a position he has held for 37 years.
“It’s not about who’s the best," he said. "Scot just worried about how to make things the best for everyone. The show is huge for the city. We’re going to make sure it keeps going.”
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'We are all part of The Village'
Left to right: Shanna Gray, trucker-songwriter Tony Justice (this year’s Wheel Jam headliner), and Tracy Bratland Bruns
Now, working in tandem with The Village, a new leadership team has taken the helm of Wheel Jam, keeping Marone’s legacy alive.
Last year, Wheel Jam founder Scot Marone (pictured) passed away -- with just a couple weeks left in his life, he turned to two South Dakota women among The Village to keep the show going.
Now as the only truck show of its size that I know of with female executive leadership, I wanted to know what the official title for team Bratland Bruns/Gray should be for the article. “We are all part of The Village,” Gray declared.
We spoke over the phone a couple weeks back after she’d had a tough day of filling Marone’s shoes. “I had no idea it would be this hard,” she said. She'd been dealing with pushback about the show’s new price point for truckers registering to show their rigs. “Paul, you show me any other truck show that will feed you and your entire family a steak dinner on Thursday and give you two free concerts. You show me any other truck show in the country that will do that. Yes we [now] charge $100" for truck registration, but it's a flat rate for bobtail or combination, "and not only do you get all that meal for free, we feed your entire family.”
For Bratland Bruns, a longtime elementary schoolteacher fully aware of the uphill climb The Village is now undertaking, the task has, at times, been daunting. Yet she maintains the bubbly disposition that one might need to give a lecture on converting fractions to decimals.
“Scot kept asking us over and over through the years, ‘Are you paying attention?’" she recalled.
Gray finished the thought: “‘Cause one day you’re going to be running this f___g show.’“
Tony Justice, hot off his headliner role at MATS, is no stranger to Wheel Jam. This year will mark his third encore performance. Friday night will feature a free concert with Justice and other guests TBA.
So I had to know, why all the food The Village is providing to registrants? Why all the effort? Why the lavish steak dinners for all those families, especially in this economy? I’ve had that dinner when Marone was still with us. It’s one of the best meals you’ll eat all year. Still, who, at any other truck show, does that?
[Related: Faith, family, friends: Crossroads Truck Meet show building community]
Was that a South Dakota thing? I asked.
“No, that was totally a Scot thing,” Gray said. There’s always been the steak dinner and an open bar on Thursday night. We wanted the show to be exactly how he left it.”
The words of the mayor came back to mind: Scot just worried about how to make things the best for everyone.
For this gearjammer, it’s difficult to recall a figure in the truck show space as universally beloved as Marone. The aforementioned Meredith Ochs, an acclaimed music writer whose byline has graced the pages of "Rolling Stone," among many other well-known outlets, perhaps put it best in her online tribute. She wrote that Marone was “a true friend to many” and noted her respect for his “boundless energy, and his love of family and friends.”
A free concert will be performed for all exhibitors at the Thursday night steak dinner by South Dakota trucker’s wife and indie artist Ja'net Eastman (pictured).
“Then there are the light shows, and the camaraderie with other drivers,” said Tracy Bratland Bruns. Among events, too, is a tire seminar will be set for 2 p.m. Friday with reps from MD Alignment, including Shanna Gray herself.
Toward the end of our talk, Gray waxed philosophical. "The lives that Scot touched with all that he did," she said. "All the free meals for the drivers. We told him we’d keep it going. It was a promise to a friend.”
To register for the show or to become a sponsor follow this link to the Wheel Jam website.
