Marvin Graves has been involved in the trucking industry off and on for more than 60 years. He started out as a company driver and later became an owner-operator before coming off the road to help truck drivers in other ways.
Cortez, Colorado-based Graves, now 76, got his start in the industry when he was 16 years old, working for a construction company hauling equipment.
The owner of that company “had two old B61 Macks” that were used to haul heavy equipment, and he taught Graves how to drive. “That was always my desire -- to be a truck driver. As soon as I got old enough, I went to work down in Houston, Texas.”
Graves left Colorado for Texas for work with an oilfield-support carrier, J.H. Rose Truck Line, where he hauled oversize and overweight equipment. He worked for Rose as a company driver for a number of years and, after a very brief stint working as an assistant terminal manager at J.H. Rose’s Tulsa, Oklahoma, terminal, he bought a truck and became an owner-operator for about 12 years before beginning his next endeavor.
J.H. Rose sold out in the 1980s, and Graves went to drive for Hill & Hill Truck Lines, another oilfield-support carrier, until they also got out of the business.
Marvin Graves and his late wife, Paula, used this 1972 Peterbilt and the accompanying trailer, dubbed the
At that point, Graves turned his focus on supporting the trucking industry in a different way and launched a truck stop ministry -- "Truckin’ Troubadors for Christ."
