Sam Landrum didn’t get into trucking for the scenery or any personal acclaim. In fact, the way things started out, he might not have been that long for the industry at all. But the Piggott, Arkansas, native stuck it out and then some, racking up decades of driving and covering millions of miles en route to being named Maverick Transportation’s 2023 Over the Road Driver of the Year.
“I’m incredibly impressed and encouraged by Sam Landrum. As much as anyone in the company, he knows how far we’ve come and how far we can go if we continue to work together and strive to make the driving job better,” said John Coppens, Maverick’s vice president of operations. “Sam is a great addition to the Driver of the Year group, and I look forward to working with him as part of our ongoing advisory councils.”
While it’s not his first driver recognition award, 67-year-old Landrum says Maverick’s award is a particularly meaningful one.
“What was so special about being named Maverick’s OTR Driver of the Year is the fact that other drivers voted on it,” he explained. “It really meant a whole lot to me when I had fellow drivers come up to me to say, ‘Man, I hope you get it. I voted for you!’ Just to be known and liked by fellow drivers meant a lot.”
While Landrum discovered trucking early in life because several family members were involved in the industry, he didn’t seriously consider it as a career for himself until the bottom dropped out of farming in the 1980s.
After graduating from high school in 1975, he worked on the farm with his father until 1981.
“Interest rates went to about 21%, and we had a drought in 1980 so we were losing money,” he said. “We had gone backwards the last two years that we farmed.
“The banker wanted to know if I wanted to continue. He was afraid my dad was going to be out on the streets without anything. They were getting scared, so I decided to quit farming,” he continued, adding that he and his wife moved to Dallas in 1982.
“My wife and folks were from Dallas, so we went down there. I got a job working in a factory, building cabinets for houses and stuff,” he said. “The first four years it was all right, but the last two years I hated even having to go to work.”
Then, opportunity knocked. A fellow church member offered Landrum a job driving a local delivery truck. After Landrum proved his skills, Landrum’s friend asked if he’d ever considered driving a semi.
Landrum said he hadn’t.
“He said, ‘Well, get in, drive around the block a time or two. You’ll learn how.’ So that’s what I done — that was my driving experience,” Landrum said with a chuckle, adding that he was asked to step in because the regular OTR driver was taking a vacation.
“My first trip was to Colorado. I don’t think I slept the whole week because I was so nervous. I had to go through the mountains and all that stuff,” Landrum said.
“I’m my own teacher. I made a lot of mistakes and I learned from mistakes,” he continued. “Of course, things are different now. Before anybody will even look at you, you’ve got to go through school and all that. I learned it hard-core.”
A funny thing happened after that initial “baptism by fire.” The more Landrum drove, the more he found he enjoyed the job. He especially liked the brotherhood drivers shared, knowing that, at any truck stop or over the CB, he could connect with someone willing to share some knowledge or help him get the job done.
“When we started out, we didn’t have no GPS, didn’t have no cellphones, no nothing. We had to buy a suitcase full of city maps,” he said. “Back then, drivers would talk to each other. So, if you went to a truck stop and said, ‘Hey, man, you ever been to this area?’ they might say, ‘Yeah. Avoid this road; there’s an old bridge here.’ Everybody talked to each other a whole lot more than they do now.”
Landrum has driven for Maverick for the past three decades, and he says his love for the job has only intensified. His dedication has not gone unnoticed by the carrier and his fellow drivers: He’s been nominated as Driver of the Month four times — and, of course, he’s a current Driver of the Year.
These days, he delivers materials for the construction and automotive industries within a 700-mile radius of his home in Piggott.
“I have a real good wife who held down the fort while I went out and made more money for our family,” he shared. “I tell you what, it takes a special woman to put up with a truck driver!
“I also want to say that Maverick was a godsend to me. I couldn’t have gone with a better company,” he continued. “That’s why I’ve been here so long. I’ve got 30 years and 3 million safe miles with them, and I can only say good things about Maverick.”
Dwain Hebda is a freelance journalist, author, editor and storyteller in Little Rock, Arkansas. In addition to The Trucker, his work appears in more than 35 publications across multiple states each year. Hebda’s writing has been awarded by the Society of Professional Journalists and a Finalist in Best Of Arkansas rankings by AY Magazine. He is president of Ya!Mule Wordsmiths, which provides editorial services to publications and companies.
