Dan Baker, owner of Baker and Sons Trucking in St. Joseph, Mo., has been named the Trucker Buddy of the Month after being nominated by teacher Susan Bailey and her second grade class of 27 students in Oregon, Mo. 

Bailey explains what Trucker Buddy Baker does for her class.  "Our class will track the movements of Mr. Baker, discuss where he visits, learn about landmarks, and how to use a road map," she says. "Mr. Baker visits our class several times a year. During his recent travels, he has driven through Massachusetts, Virginia, West Virginia, Florida, Georgia, and Texas. He brought the children postcards, magnets, and a real baby alligator head for our new classroom pet.

"According to Bailey, the children are always excited to see Baker's red truck and refrigerated trailer. "They went inside the sleeper and were amazed that he had a refrigerator, microwave, two beds and lots of movies," she said. "'Trucker Dave', as they call him, also showed them where he keeps his snack container the class gave him for Valentine's Day."

Bailey's class is the first one to participate in this program at South Holt Elementary School  and they are grateful that the Baker family has chosen their class to participate in the Trucker Buddy program.

"The children also were able to see inside the back of his refrigerated trailer and he told them about hauling goods that needed cold air. After the tour, several comments were made that he has a lot of buttons to control and they really liked the shiny chrome ones. Trucker Dave brought the class eight new magnets for the classroom's display board. During his last trip, we enjoyed many e-mails and pictures posted in our classroom. Our class looks forward to hearing from our Trucker Buddy Dave!"

Trucker Buddy International, an independent, non-profit 501(c) (3) organization, often called the number one trucking image campaign in North America, has helped educate schoolchildren and introduce educators to the trucking industry.

This gives them the world through the eyes of a professional truck driver. 

The Trucker Buddy program helps to educate and mentor schoolchildren via a pen pal relationship between professional truck drivers and children in grades K-8 as supervised by their teachers.

After an extensive screening process, the professional truck drivers are matched with a class and as directed by the teacher, drivers share news about their travels with their class. Students write letters and send pictures to their drivers. Students' skills in reading, writing, geography, mathematics, social studies, and history are enhanced and learning is made fun.

Since 1992, Trucker Buddy International has helped educate over a million schoolchildren and introduced them to caring, compassionate men and women, professional truck drivers.  The on-going success of the program is due to driver volunteers, participating teachers and the contributions of sponsors.  There is no cost to the drivers or teachers to participate in the program. The Trucker Buddy of the Month is sponsored by Daimler Truck Products and includes, Freightliner Trucks, Western Star Trucks, Detroit and Progressive Commercial Insurance. Each class of the winning TBOM receives a gift pack of snack from Frito-Lay.  The Trucker Buddy program is funded entirely by sponsorships and donations.  

Trucker Buddy press releases are provided by ACS, A Xerox Company.