This week on the Oakley Podcast, host Megan Cummings welcomes Corey Huey, Dustin Eagle, and Jeremy Paul to talk about all things with the Oakley company party. During the episode, the group emphasizes the event’s significance in fostering community among Oakley owner-operators and their families. Megan provides details about lodging, the truck show, and the impressive prizes. JP and Dustin elaborate on logistics, including shuttle services, parking, and the awards ceremony. The episode highlights the party’s food, entertainment, and the importance of recognizing employees’ achievements. This is a highlight of the year for the Oakley family and we encourage all our owner-operators and their families to attend. Don’t miss this episode!
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- Overview of the Company Party (1:02)
- Company Party History (2:18)
- Party Logistics and Schedule (4:08)
- Truck Show Voting Process (6:04)
- Truck Show Awards (8:45)
- Safety Awards Overview (10:12)
- Company Family Atmosphere (12:05)
- Entertainment Announcement (15:11)
- Company Appreciation and Team Bonding (17:29)
- Cooking and Food Details (19:27)
- Awards Ceremony Overview (24:10)
- Final Schedule Recap (26:30)
- Event Excitement and Closing Remarks (27:47)
Oakley Trucking is a family-owned and operated trucking company headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. For more information, check out our show website: podcast.bruceoakley.com.
Transcription
Jeremy Kellett 00:12
Welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. This show is brought to you by Oakley trucking, headquartered at North Little Rock, Arkansas. The purpose of this podcast is to communicate with Oakley owner operators and their families by giving them up to date information concerning Oakley trucking and the trucking industry, from business advice to safety updates to success stories, also to give an insight to outside truck drivers that might be interested in joining the Oakley family. Hey, welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking business and family. I’m Jeremy Kellett, your host here, and we are at our studio in Oakland, Rock, Arkansas, and today I got Megan Cummings with me. And glad you’re here, happy to be here. We are doing an episode. Actually, I’m not, but Megan is doing an episode with the recruiting guys, who did you have on there at
Megan Cummings 01:02
JP Corey and Dustin? JP
Jeremy Kellett 01:04
Corey and Dustin and they are covering everything about the company party, so all the ins and outs, what all did y’all cover? Beggar,
Megan Cummings 01:13
We started out with lodging. We went over truck show details and stuff for the people that are in the truck show as well. Any helpful tips for that?
Jeremy Kellett 01:23
Did y’all go over the prizes? Yes. I mean, there’s some serious surprises. Well,
Megan Cummings 01:29
okay, so Corey didn’t completely expand on it, so I don’t want to say anything, just in case it was a surprise. Okay, maybe. But we did go over the trophies and the raffle prizes. So we went to the Truck Show. We went over to or over James wooldridge’s
01:44
cookout gumbo.
Megan Cummings 01:45
Yeah, the food, the music, the dancing,
Jeremy Kellett 01:50
you know, this party. I know y’all probably talked about it. And you can go back, actually, and look at some past episodes a few years back, and me and Tommy had one long time ago, we talked about what all is taking place at the company party, some of the real old ones that we did. You know, when Bruce did ’em, we were down on a boat down there. I talked about it before. And, I mean, we just had some great company parties here over the years, but now it’s gotten, I mean, it’s massive. We got some people coming.
Megan Cummings 02:19
Yeah, we talked about that. Tyler Kinch Yeah, told
Jeremy Kellett 02:23
him last on one of the I don’t know if we played it yet or not, but I hope so. But one of the episodes, I told all the subscribers, does not show up here.
Megan Cummings 02:32
Yeah, we had to do that too. Yeah. Annabelle was mouthing something at the end, and I’m like, What are you saying? Yeah. She’s like, it’s just okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there’s more of a reason to lease on and then you can come next year. That’s right, you know, I always try to slip it in somewhere, not to, like, bribe people into working here. I mean, you know, you’ll figure out how great it is sooner or later. But orientation guys, I’m like, have they told you guys about the party?
Jeremy Kellett 03:01
Great time. Parties are always good. We have a lot of awards. I mean, I’m glad y’all covered details, so that’s really good. So yeah, everybody sticks around and listens to that. But hey, first, our sponsors, I gotta always put a plug in for them. The guys do a great job. I talk to Keith and Trey every week about trucks, and they, you know, at Arrow, they’ve got some great use trucks. I mean, the paperwork is seamless. I mean, this makes things so simple, because you don’t realize buying from us at a good dealership makes a difference. We see it all the time. Megan sees it every week. People buying at off the wall dealerships can’t get paperwork. We had a guy the other not long ago, actually, recruit, he couldn’t come to work because they didn’t have the title. Yeah, some place that he bought from didn’t produce a title, and it’s, you
Megan Cummings 03:49
don’t think about that stuff when you’re buying the truck, either. But it all trickles down. You know, sure,
Jeremy Kellett 03:53
things got to be done, right? And we have high expectations of things done, right? We have high standards here, and I appreciate the arrows and their standards too, and what they do. Those guys do a great job. So other than that, let’s get started with the episode.
Megan Cummings 04:07
Hi everybody. I’m Megan Cummings. I’m co hosting this podcast with three lovely gentlemen, and we’re all here to discuss the party on October 19. Right, correct. Yeah, they’re ready, excited, yeah,
Dustin Eagle 04:21
oh yeah, sure. Are stoked. Little over a week away, I guess, Yep,
Corey Huey 04:26
yeah. So this, I guess, will be coming out the week prior, so
Megan Cummings 04:31
to the party. So, so Saturday, 19th, what time does everything start?
Corey Huey 04:37
Well, it depends on if you’re just attending, or if you’re in the truck show. But, I mean, some guys will be up here all day, shining up, polishing up, but it
Dustin Eagle 04:48
really kind of kicks off Friday night. I mean, because the guys are in the truck show, coming to the yard, we’ll be lying on them. They’ll hang out here
Corey Huey 04:56
all night. But for the general public. You know, you know, trying to get here early, you know, so that you can look at all the trucks and vote on your favorite. But I think the shuttle buses start around 4: 48 pm from the two hotels. So, okay, which
Megan Cummings 05:15
are the two hotels that we have? Well, we
Dustin Eagle 05:17
have the Holiday Inn, the Little Rock airport. When does everybody stay in orientation? Yep, I do know they have some rooms available. We had the Windham, but as of this morning, I think they were sold out. So we can call and check, but yeah,
Corey Huey 05:34
call or check. If you don’t have their number, you can call one of us. We can get your numbers. So
Megan Cummings 05:39
if they call themselves, so they need to tell it. They need to tell them that they’re from Oakley.
05:44
Yeah, yes. Okay, yeah. So
Corey Huey 05:46
We have a link for the rooms, or you can just call. You gotta let them know for Oakley so you can get to that group right on the hotel.
Megan Cummings 05:56
Okay, so what did we say? Five o’clock? You think 530
Dustin Eagle 06:00
I’d say four o’clock to get here. Okay? So you can look at the trucks
Megan Cummings 06:04
and what time does Okay, so that’s kind of the thing that kicks off the party, is the truck show. Yeah, do we close? When do we close? Voting? 7pm
Corey Huey 06:14
Okay, so if they give you, if you got here at four, I give you three hours to load, which plenty of time, and
Megan Cummings 06:23
that way it still lights out. So you get to look at all the trucks and stuff like that. How many I was going to ask? So this is the third year of the truck show. When do they need to start? So for next year, when does somebody need to call you and say, hey, I want to, I want to go ahead and put my truck in for the truck show, whatever. Yeah. How many spots do we have?
Corey Huey 06:42
Well, we’re kind of limited on space. So 25 I would tell you, probably are cut off. So, and I think we’ve got 2221 in there this year. So, okay, a good mix,
Megan Cummings 06:59
beautiful. So four o’clock is a good time to get here. I’ll start the truck show and boating ends at seven o’clock. I do want to ask you guys about parking, because people who’ve never, I guess, if most people are shuttling, it’s not a big deal. But if you’re driving, you just find somewhere in the yard to park.
Dustin Eagle 07:17
Yep, yeah, when you pull down into the yard, you’ll go past the driver’s lounge, over the levee, and that whole open area right there will be for parking most years, and even behind the office right here, most of the employees park here, but anybody can park throughout the whole parking lot back there. Okay, so sue, and then you should be able to see the trucks as soon as you park. I mean, you’re gonna be able to walk right through them to get to the tent so
Corey Huey 07:45
and just going back to the shuttles. So the shuttles, like I said, will start at 4pm bringing people from the hotel to the party, and then they will just be on a rotation every 30 minutes. Okay, until 11:30pm is the last shuttle. So I know, just from experience from last year, I’m gonna have some signs made up to stick on the bus. So this bus is designated for Windham. This bus is designated for the hot end, so make sure you get on the right bus so you don’t go to the wrong hotel parties over
Dustin Eagle 08:28
okay? And make sure you catch the last bus, because if you don’t, you won’t be asking for a ride over there. Make sure that’s happened. It
Megan Cummings 08:35
happens every evening. Okay? So we’ve got the truck show that voting ends at seven o’clock. And obviously we got what three awards for the truck show,
Corey Huey 08:45
yep, yep. First, second, third place. We’ve got some great prizes, trophies. We made some custom trophies this year, so pretty sweet. I did a good job on those that looked pretty nice. If you haven’t seen them yet, we can get to Annabelle to post a picture of them on there, but there, we’ve got them here in the office, and we’ll have them on display out there the night of so you can look at them. But yeah, some really nice custom trophies. And then, you know, some great sponsors with some, you know, raffle prizes and things like that there to give out to all the contestants. So, so it’s big tarot,
Megan Cummings 09:19
Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, they put a lot of work into this, absolutely, yeah,
Corey Huey 09:23
They sure do a lot of work. So, yeah, encourage everybody to vote. You know, if you didn’t vote last year, you know, vote. We’ve got a voting booth set up. You just come up there. It’s really simple. You just, and it’s just, you know, pick your favorite. So, yeah, well, this
Dustin Eagle 09:40
a person gets one vote correct.
Megan Cummings 09:42
The process is pretty streamlined, too. I mean, it’s all you do. It’s all from your phone. It’s your scanning QR code, Yep, yeah. So it’s pretty it takes, like, I don’t know, 30 seconds to put a vote in. You
Dustin Eagle 09:52
I can’t figure it out. Like Corey said, we’re always up there, and we got our iPads where we can do it for you. Just we get you all set up, and then you scroll down and pick your what. Truck and push them in. So, yeah.
Jeremy Paul 10:01
So we are doing the same as last year as far as voting goes in. Okay, yeah, it’s easy.
Megan Cummings 10:06
So we’ve got awards for the truck show. We’ve also got awards for drivers. JP, you want to tell us a little bit about that,
Jeremy Paul 10:12
yeah. So we got a lot of different awards that we’re gonna be giving out this year. And like, for example, you know, each dispatcher gets to select their owner operator of the year. So they’ll get, they’ll each choose one, and then think we always give the owner operator the years, you know, free truck wash. I have to confirm that that’s what we’re gonna do this year, but pretty sure that’s right, is we, that’s what we’ve done in years past. We’ve got 8 million mile awards to give out this year. A million, you know, the good thing about that’s a million safe miles. So it’s not just driving a million miles, it’s actually a million safe driving miles. So we got eight of those to give out. I’m not going to, you know, say their names. We want to leave that as a surprise for the party, obviously, but we’ll be giving some rings out for those. We’ve got a 20 year safe driving award to give out this year, which will be interesting to see who that is. We’ve got 1410, year safe driving awards to give out, and we have a grand total of 55 five year safe driving awards to give out. And then obviously, each of those are the safety awards. Now we also have the 10 year awards, obviously, which will be jackets and plaques, you know, for five years, 10 years, 20 years and 35 year awards. We’re actually giving one of those away as well. So that’d be lots of awards coming up for that
Megan Cummings 11:31
beautiful and the 10 year awards, those are those just for the driver. We do those for the drivers and office staff, right? Is that just for the office staff? Okay? So there you go. You get to see people that you just talk to on the phone. You know, you’re like, oh my gosh, I had no idea. What’s
Dustin Eagle 11:45
The cool thing about this party is it’s not just people from North Little Rock. You’re coming in from, yeah, every location we have, and we have a bunch now. I mean, yeah, you know, coming out of Louisiana, Oklahoma, Missouri, Ohio. I mean, Illinois, there’s people we’ve never seen. So that’s what’s pretty cool about it. Whole company meets one time a year here in North Little Rock, yeah,
Jeremy Paul 12:10
I always like to catch up with some of those folks. We don’t get to see a whole lot of, you know, locations, speak with them, and even get to know some new people each year. It seems like I do like that aspect of it, but I’m sad about it. I always tell
Megan Cummings 12:21
people, especially, like, that’s my favorite part of orientation. Always, like, they told you guys about the company party yet because you want to go. I mean, it’s that’s a time to, I mean, it’s not work related necessarily. It’s just time to get together and meet new people. I mean, you talk to these people on the phone all day, every day, or you work with them in the office and try to stomach their presence. And then you get together on a Saturday night, and you’re like, oh my gosh, these people aren’t that bad. Anyways, it’s a nice opportunity to meet people. And if it’s put on by the company, it’s free food, open bar. We haven’t discussed that yet, you know. And then the shuttles, of course, back and forth to the rooms. So
Dustin Eagle 13:01
yeah, we probably should have started off with that, but the lineup, like you just mentioned, the open bar, starts at 530 Yep, PM,
Megan Cummings 13:12
and then we’ll make sure to drink your electrolytes, yep, Saturday morning. And then
Dustin Eagle 13:16
We’ll have Dinner will be served at six, I’m pretty sure. What
Megan Cummings 13:20
Are we having dinner? Dustin King cat. Oh, yeah. And what is King cat for people who have catfish, chicken and
Dustin Eagle 13:26
all fixings, you’re not gonna go hungry if you do. It’s your own fault.
Jeremy Paul 13:30
They did a really good job, too. I don’t know how they make the food that good with that quantity of taste very fresh. Yeah, it’s very good. Yeah. Cuz
Corey Huey 13:37
That’s a lot of fish. What do I mean? What do y’all say? People wise, how many people are we? Oh, man,
Megan Cummings 13:44
Have we ever gotten a head count before?
13:46
I’m sure? Well, I
Dustin Eagle 13:47
mean, you said that we had, what, 400 something votes last year, just people that voted.
Megan Cummings 13:52
Yeah. And it’s more than because a lot of some people don’t show up till after the truck show, right? I mean, you got people filtering in
Dustin Eagle 13:57
and out. I would say 500. I’d say five to 600 people don’t count me on the list. But now that you said 600 I think Tommy said, I do remember him saying, now that I think they serve 620 something plates. Oh, wow. You know something that’s probably people going back, and
Jeremy Paul 14:13
I feel like that’s all I gotta go up each year as we continue
Megan Cummings 14:17
to grow. So does anybody know what our truck count is as of right now,
Dustin Eagle 14:20
717, what do I mean?
Megan Cummings 14:28
917 Okay, so yeah, and the whole goal is to continue to grow as a company, so we obviously hope that it’ll get bigger.
Jeremy Paul 14:37
I just got back from vacation. We’ve got
Dustin Eagle 14:39
my mind, right? Yeah, take a week off, and I forget everything. What
Megan Cummings 14:42
I’ve had a couple people ask about this kid friendly. Can they bring their
Dustin Eagle 14:47
kids? Yeah, absolutely,
Corey Huey 14:48
Okay, yeah. Well, we have a lot of people have their whole families here, so
Dustin Eagle 14:52
We encourage that. Honestly, bring your whole family. I mean, we want them to have a good weekend up here. Absolutely,
Megan Cummings 14:58
we’re a fun time. It’s. Oh yes. Okay, so we’ve, we had this guy perform last year, and I heard that he was a big hit. I was unable to make it to the board. You were
15:09
not the board. I was sick last year. That’s a
Dustin Eagle 15:11
rule. You have to come. So
Megan Cummings 15:14
I’ll never do that again. By the way, I would like to make that, yes, very clear. Tyler Kinch, so
Dustin Eagle 15:19
after the party or after we do the dinner and the awards. A good buddy. He’s a good buddy, but also a pretty well known performer in country music, Tyler Ken. She’ll start at eight o’clock and go to 10: 30 last year, we caught him in to go on 30 minutes longer. Yeah, we didn’t care so and then everybody ran us out of there at 11. So we had a good time. It was a good time. He’s really, he’s fun. And stick around and watch him. You enjoy it.
Jeremy Paul 15:44
Is he still touring with Justin? Justin Morton, right? He’s been
Dustin Eagle 15:49
traveling around everywhere. I think he was in California last week. Wow,
Megan Cummings 15:53
wow. And so now it’s kind of like you have to go if we have a big time country music star that took a night out of his busy schedule on a Saturday night that he did perform in North Little Rock.
Dustin Eagle 16:04
He is very busy. I was getting kind of worried because he’s going to call me any time . Man, I got this opportunity. I
16:09
I can’t mess it up. Yeah,
Megan Cummings 16:11
I heard last year he was also taking requests. It was kind of like a karaoke thing. Corey’s story about that, don’t you?
Corey Huey 16:19
Yeah, he had my wife partake in that. I don’t even remember what song it was now, but yeah, she was feeling good. So
Megan Cummings 16:26
we have, we have a lot of fun. It’s
Dustin Eagle 16:29
just a fun time getting away from work one night, letting loose a little bit, you know, and then you see people dancing, smiling, having a good time. It’s, I
Megan Cummings 16:38
I would also like the record to show that, I think it says a lot about Oakley that you enjoy the people that you work with enough to want to spend time with extracurricular, time with them, you know, and be like, You know what? This is a big deal. Everybody looks forward to it in the office. Truck drivers. Come July or so, you’ll start getting those calls where they’re like, You come with a party this year. We’re gonna have a party this year, you know, I haven’t seen anything about it yet. So everybody really enjoys it. I think we’ve got a good group of people. We can all get along well. And
Jeremy Paul 17:08
it’s, you know, when we’re in the office, we have so much going on, so much work to do, work related stuff, to get done, it’s hard to make time to have those conversations, you know, outside of just work related things. So, I mean, you spend hours at that party talking to people and catching up on things, just talking about life, and it’s really enjoyable. I encourage everybody that can come to come out and make it, because it’s well worth the trip, for sure. Yeah,
Megan Cummings 17:29
I think that’s what it boils down to. It’s just a way of Oakley, you know, showing that they appreciate all their employees, truck drivers, office staff, even from different departments as well. You know, if you’re in the office, you’re not in trucking,
Dustin Eagle 17:46
might as well show up. Yeah, it’s kind of crazy. We work in here every day together, but hardly ever see any you know, like each each division kind of does their own thing, and you don’t talk as much as you should to each other, yeah,
Jeremy Paul 18:02
lots of new people as well, 1520, yards and by and not talk to them all, yeah,
Megan Cummings 18:07
but
Dustin Eagle 18:08
it’s also, I think we need to mention too, none of this, what we’re talking about today, would take place with, you know, without our great owners, Dennis and Justin Oakley, yeah, they, you know, they don’t have to do this. They take the time and want to do it, and they deserve a lot of credit for it, for sure, absolutely,
Megan Cummings 18:25
yeah, and they’ll be there too, absolutely. So that’s anytime I see them, Well, anytime I see them in the office, but you know, whenever you see them at the party, it’s like, my gosh, especially if you bring somebody and like, that’s just like, oh, okay, Benny will be there. Benny’s normally there. Binley will be there. So you see all the big wigs. I did want to mention we were talking about better mentioning your boss, times and stuff. Oh, and my boss, Jeremy kellett. Jeremy Kellett’s gonna be there at the start of the Oakley podcast. You
Dustin Eagle 18:56
might not be a host anymore. Co host anymore, if you don’t. Yeah.
Megan Cummings 18:59
Also, should we say anything about maybe kind of trying to film Annabelle will be out filming that day, and I’m sure most of the time we get truck show guys in on Friday afternoon, so outside filming that on Friday afternoon. And Saturday afternoon, all the recruiters will be here. You guys are getting here early in the morning, aren’t you? And then for anybody that happens to be on the yard, James Wooldridge, he’s a tank guy. Tell us about James.
Corey Huey 19:27
Yeah. So guess this is his third year, too. So the last couple years, James, you know, he’s just a great southern guy. Loves to cook, loves to eat, and he’s great at it. So. But Saturday, during the, you know, all these guys are up here getting their trucks ready for the event, and that’s why he’s going to be cooking some of his famous gumbo Jumbo. I’m not real sure what what you call it,
Dustin Eagle 19:55
but I’m kind of confusing whatever I’m working early
Jeremy Paul 19:58
this year to get some of that. Met last year. Yes sir, Louisiana cooking,
Corey Huey 20:02
hopefully around that 11 to noon time frame. You’ll have that ready. Funny story,
Dustin Eagle 20:06
Last year, we didn’t see Randolph all morning. He showed up at lunchtime, eight and then left again.
20:14
Come on, Randolph.
Megan Cummings 20:16
Yeah, Randolph will be here as well. You know, there’s a couple times throughout the year where Randolph’s not in orientation. We just have kind of subs in for orientation. So Randolph’s pretty , he’s a pillar of the Oakley family. So if you haven’t met him yet, you’ll be able to meet Randolph. He’s a good guy. He’s
Jeremy Paul 20:34
usually out there and, now, the dance floor. So,
Megan Cummings 20:36
Oh yeah, oh, that’s another, so Okay, we have live music, but there is an air of a lot of people, a lot of people, who get jiggy with it. I don’t remember who it was. I wouldn’t call them out on a podcast anyways, but it was somebody that worked in the office, and it was her and her husband, and she was cutting a rug. And it was a very pleasant surprise. You know, you just click over and call them out. Now, I can’t remember who it was. You get
Jeremy Paul 21:02
to see a whole new side of people. Yeah,
Megan Cummings 21:04
It’s like what you were talking about earlier. You just don’t you’re like, Oh my gosh. I had no idea.
Jeremy Paul 21:09
I thought I knew. I really know them. Yeah, and then you
Megan Cummings 21:13
don’t like anybody in the eye on Monday, whenever you make it back to the office. I’m just kidding. We don’t get that wild. But live music, free food, open bar dancing, maybe a an impromptu karaoke session, if things are like last year at all, fingers crossed,
Corey Huey 21:32
and some impromptu vlogging.
Megan Cummings 21:35
Oh yes, yes. So we’re gonna try, well,
21:37
This is tentative. No, it’s happening. We’ll do some footage
Megan Cummings 21:41
around the party that night with those little microphones, and you hold them. Have you seen those Tik Tok videos? Oh, they’re all over. Yeah, they’re talking about so just maybe just some good old fashioned phone recording and a microphone. So if you, I’m sure we’ll have a light too. Won’t we do something where you can see, I don’t know, we’ll have something set up, but just be prepared if we walk by with a microphone, you know, we’ll get some good B roll for the party group. Yeah,
Corey Huey 22:15
yeah. So we’re, we’re just jumping all around here, but going back to the the truck shows, you know, if people are going to start showing up here around four to, you know, showing up for the party, well, I want to make sure that we’ve got everything cleaned up ready to go prior to that. So kind of what we did last year was, you know, I just told everybody, you know, rags down at 2pm you know. So if that means you need to get here Friday to get everything ready, or, you know, get some help to get your truck cleaned up or whatever. But we just want to, we just want to make sure we’ve got everything done, cleaned up, out of the way, so everything’s looking good when everybody shows up at four o’clock, and then that’ll give you time, you know, if you’re done at two o’clock. And you need to, you know, run back to the hotel, shower, get cleaned up, and before you come back, before everything starts. So, so,
Megan Cummings 23:09
2pm 2pm 2pm rags down, and then you’ve got until 4pm No, 4pm is when everybody’s getting there. The truck show starts at five, yeah, right, okay, and then voting ends at seven. Yep, beautiful. If
Jeremy Paul 23:23
we can, I want to go back to the safety’s given out as well. Really quick. I forgot to tell everyone when the awards started. If y’all could just please, you know, pay attention and listen, because there’s a lot of awards to give out. Man, a lot of times we’re looking around trying to find people to give them those awards. So help us out, if you don’t mind, pay attention. Doesn’t fit your name and come up there and see us to get awards like I say, if you’ve been here five years, you’re getting a jacket. If you’ve been here five years and you have the five year safe driving, so no accidents, then you’re also getting a truck trophy. Our 10 years on, our operators will be getting a watch and a plaque. And then the 20 plus years will also be getting a and then your million milers will be getting their million mile ring. So just listen for your name. Be sure you come up there and we’ll have it all organized. But it helped us out a lot if you’re there ready to receive your reward, once the danger call good point, because it gets
Dustin Eagle 24:17
loud, and yes, it does. Get
Megan Cummings 24:19
those from your dispatcher? Do you get them from Roger? Roger will likely
Jeremy Paul 24:23
be announcing everything, and then just a lot of us safety individuals will be there to hand out the actual awards to them. Now, the owner out there the year plaques, the dispatch will give those out specifically to the drivers and take pictures with them and everything. So
Megan Cummings 24:37
That award ceremony is a good chunk of the night. I’d say it’s at least. What an hour, 45 minutes, 35 to 45 Yeah,
Corey Huey 24:44
yes. A lot of awards. Yeah,
Jeremy Paul 24:46
I would say so when you’re given, you know, we got 75 guys that have been here five years this year. That’s a lot of people, and 55 of those getting the safe driving awards. So, and
Corey Huey 24:56
that’s just owner operator, so
24:58
That’s not an offense.
Corey Huey 24:59
How long have you been here?
25:01
Three years, three years.
25:02
What’s gJp,
Jeremy Paul 25:04
I’ve been here for eight years in May. What
25:08
about you guys?
Corey Huey 25:10
15?
Megan Cummings 25:13
How old I was when you started here. You’ve
Jeremy Paul 25:18
I’ve been here for 15 years. Wow. Wow. Yep, that’s fallen by. I know that.
Megan Cummings 25:25
So if the owner operator, God forbid, is unable to come, how are we going to get their award? That’s
Jeremy Paul 25:34
a great question. So in years past, what we’ve done is we like to try to still, you know, shake the owner operator’s hand and thank them for everything they’re doing. And so we try to get the dispatcher around them through here to receive that award. So we can, you know, see them in person to do that. But sometimes that’s not always feasible, because everyone they get busy, and it’s, you know, might be hard to work them through here and on where they work out of So worst case scenario, will just mail the awards they receive to
Megan Cummings 25:58
them. Yeah, okay, so if possible, come in so we can see you hug your neck or shake your hand, whatever. Get a picture. You know, I know you guys normally like to get pictures with Yes, for sure, but if not worst case, we can always send that in there. Yeah, we’ll definitely make sure they get it. Absolutely. Don’t pass up a chance to come into the office. I mean, look, we’re all here. So that’s enough motivation for me. Anyways, do we have any last, any final do we want to run over the whole schedule one more time since we’ve kind of been scatterbrained, any last thoughts? We can just remember rooms. You want to start with the rooms at the Holiday Inn, airport and Windham, which is over here on the North Little Rock side, Wyndham riverfront. Right now,
Dustin Eagle 26:43
I think throughout the rooms, but you can call and check we still have some at the Holiday Inn. Truck show starts at well, we’re gonna try to start four o’clock
Megan Cummings 26:52
gumbo at 11 to 12 ish, tentative and
Dustin Eagle 26:56
The open bar will start at 5: 30 and dinner at six. Bring your appetite. Then we’ll do the awards, and then the live music kick off around eight o’clock,
Megan Cummings 27:05
so, and then the debauchery commences. Oh yeah,
Dustin Eagle 27:10
This is strictly just for Oakley employees, Oakley owner operators and their families, yeah. So I know a lot of people check out the podcast.
27:19
Oh yeah, it’s
Dustin Eagle 27:19
a good point, you know. And we’re probably going, oh, man, it sounds fun. Let’s go.
Corey Huey 27:26
What do you do next?
Dustin Eagle 27:28
May we get you over here one day. But for now, yeah, for the current employees and owner operators and their families, and it’s
Megan Cummings 27:35
also mandatory, so you have to come or you’re fired. I thought we should probably add that in at some point, a little disclosure, yeah, last year it wasn’t, but this year it is so okay. Any final thoughts, gentlemen, I think so. No, that kind of went over everything. I know we’re so excited. October 19 at the Oakley yard. Look for the big red tent and a lot of trucks, nice and pretty, sitting out on the art, and you’ll find somebody. I’m sure we’ll all be here. We all look forward to seeing you guys. Hope you come. Hope you have a great time. Any last words? I’m good, good, good. Are you sure? Can’t wait to see it. Thank you guys. Thanks everyone. Thank you.
Jeremy Kellett 28:17
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