Tyrone Burcham and Wade Burcham have always driven parallel lanes in life. The native Virginians’ resumes are almost identical, from their careers in trucking to the success they’ve had as professional drivers.
The duo has been driving for a combined 61 years, 29 of those years with Estes Express Lines. Those totals split almost down the middle, with Tyrone — who’s 15 months older than Wade — holding a one-year edge.
Both Tyrone and Wade have reached the 2.5 million safe miles mark with the Estes and are both approaching the 4-million-mile mark in their respective careers. Again, Tyrone has a slight edge — after all, he had a one-year head start in the business.
As if that weren’t mirror-image enough, their parents further solidified the bond between the brothers by naming the eldest Tyrone Wade and the younger Wade Tyrone. That’s a moniker twist that has produced some memorable moments through the years.
“When me and Tyrone were running team for A&W, we were in Montana at a scale house one time,” Wade said with a chuckle.
“(The inspector) pulled me in for a check. He asked me for my logbook, and I gave it to him. He looked at it, and he looked at me, and he said, ‘Do you think I’m stupid? Do I look stupid?’ I said, ‘No, sir. Why?’
“He said, ‘I’ve seen people put down Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, but I’ve never seen no one dumb enough to reverse their name,’” Wade continued. “I told him, ‘Oh, Tyrone Wade’s my brother. I’ll get him up if you want me to.’ He said, ‘No, but you will go get his license and his logbook.’
“He made me go out there and get Tyrone’s license and logbook and bring them in for him to see that Ty really existed,” Wade laughed.
Even though the brothers aren’t twins, let alone look-alikes, their names make quite an impression.
“We’ll bump into people that we ain’t seen since elementary school and they’ll say, ‘I never forget you two because of your names,’” Tyrone chuckled.
The fact that the two brothers are so identically skilled behind the wheel can be attributed to their father, Tyrone, who inspired the boys to go into the industry. He even worked at Estes, with his sons before retiring.
During his time at Estes, the elder Tyrone had a chance to drive team with each of his sons. Today, the brothers give their father a lot of the credit for their longevity and safety record.
“He taught us everything,” said Wade. “Number one: slow down, check and double check. Whenever you’re driving, pay attention to what’s going on the road. If you had something going on at the house, that would be there when you got back; focus on what you’re doing.”
Both brothers count themselves lucky to have been able to team with their father.
“I ran team with Dad for probably a year and a half. My brother, he ran team with him when we went out west,” Tyrone said. “(Like Wade said, Dad) always said, ‘Don’t get in a rush. Make sure you cross your T’s, dot your I’s, check everything and think stuff through. Don’t ever get in a hurry. Always take your time, and do it right the first time.’”
The brothers have also been able to team drive together during their career, and each has traveled to all of the lower 48 U.S. states and into Canada. Today, thanks to their seniority, they run as a team … of sorts. While they don’t necessarily share a truck, they DO share the road.
“We started out hauling reefer. We would haul NAPA filters out to Seattle and Portland, Oregon. Then we would turn around and pick up produce in Washington state – apples – and come back,” Tyrone said. “We done that for about the first — me, seven and a half years, and my brother six and a half years.
“Right now, we’re running general freight and dry box to Kentucky,” he continued. “We run separate trucks, but we’ve got enough seniority that we get to follow each other. I run at 4 in the morning and my brother runs at 4:30 in the morning.”
The brothers’ close bond — and their father’s early lessons — have always kept any sibling rivalry out of the cab.
“We’ve always worked together well,” Tyrone said. “I mean, we’ve always been competitive against one another, but in a good way. We work together, and we’re so close that usually when I hit a milestone, he’s right behind me — within six months anyway.”
The two still love what they do, despite everything that’s changed since they first got behind the wheel more than 30 years ago.
Wade attributes a large portion of their contentment on the road the company the two have called home for the past couple of decades.
“Working for Estes, when they give you your bills and you’re going to do your run — as long as you’re doing your job and doing it like they want you to do — they really don’t bother you,” he said. “I like that freedom. I mean, I never could think about working in a factory or doing something else.”
Tyrone says he’s not sure if the two will ever “outgrow” their love of the road.
“I still like traveling. I still like going out seeing everything, going in truck stops, stuff like that,” he said. “Trucking is just a good industry. We just try to keep it how we found it, you know? It was good when we came into it and, hopefully, it’ll be good whenever we get to leave it at retirement age.”
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.
