Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/748284
26 | Overdrive | November 2016 ''I think the truck driver is sort of the last cowboy," says Jason Lee Wilson, 37, win- ner of the 2016 Overdrive- Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search. "There is some amount of freedom in driving this commodity from one loca- tion to another, like cowboys would drive cattle from the fields to the stockyards." Wilson's cowboy affinity covers more than trucking. He loves cowboy music and its not-too-distant cousins. His early musical exposure happened in church and in front of the radio, and his singing and songwriting are influenced by classic country artists such as Dwight Yoakum and John Anderson. That love of music and his later career choice of trucking led him to the live Trucker Talent Search competition held in August at The Great American Trucking Show in Dallas. Wilson's uncle had a grading and hauling business, and Wilson recalls rid- ing in the company dump truck when he was a kid. "I never thought I would do that," he says. Nearly seven years into his driving career, he can't imagine doing anything else. Driving a dump locally and dry van regionally, he feels a strong connection to the old-school trucking culture. Perhaps that's partly tied to being born and raised in Monteagle, Tennes- see, known by truckers for sitting atop a particularly steep grade of Interstate 24 northwest of Chattanooga. The danger- ous stretch was immortalized in Jerry Reed's "The Legend" (from "Smokey and the Bandit") and Johnny Cash's "Monteagle Mountain." After studying studio art and minoring in music at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, Wilson worked in aftermarket gauge restoration. He went back to school to take some arts education and German courses and then began teaching art at an elementary school. He then switched to working for the county's 4-H Club Foundation. About the time he was finishing up at 4-H, a friend with a trucking company needed more drivers. "My friend helped me get my CDL, and I started driving for him off and on," he says. Soon after, he moved to Maryville, Tennessee, to be closer to family. A neighbor there drove for MDM Truck- ing, the company for which Wilson now drives a dump truck full time. He still pulls a dry van occasionally to haul stage lighting equipment and rigging for his Monteagle buddy's company, Perfect Tenn Transportation. During those career changes, even as far back as his childhood, Wilson has had one constant — music. His father gave him a student-size guitar for his ninth birthday. "It was my dad's guitar," he says. "His father had Jason Lee Wilson performed "Truck Stop Betty," an original song he dedicated to mom-and-pop truck stops, to win the Trucker Talent Search at The Great American Trucking Show. The song's opening lyrics: Truck Stop Betty she'll fill you up / Diesel tank or your coffee cup / Truck Stop Betty she don't never let you down / Keep you swimmin' in those coffee grounds / When it's time, it's time, but oh, how I hate to leave / Yeah, now Truck Stop Betty she's the one for me. Kathleen Craft Monteagle's son takes flight Trucker Talent Search boosts driver's lifelong musical ambitions BY KATHLEEN CRAFT