Carl Crim

Carl Cleveland Crim (March 11, 1915 – February 17, 1978) was an American truck driver who won the American Trucking Associations’ National Truck Driver of the Year award in 1959.

Early Life

Carl Crim was born in Doniphan, Missouri on March 11, 1915 to Ed Franklin Crim and Cora Rutledge. He was one of three children. When he was just a young boy, his family moved from Missouri to Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

While working on the family farm as a teenager, Crim aspired to become a truck driver when he watched trucks go by as he plowed the fields near the highway. After operating a hay carrier during the harvest seasons, Crim graduated from Okmulgee High School and his career ambition began to take shape when he took his first professional driving job in 1933 in Okmulgee.

Early Career

Throughout the next ten years, Carl Crim would work at a variety of trucking firms. He drove trucks for:

• John Lewis Truck Company (2 years),
• Petroleum Transport (4 years),
• Hopkins Truck Co. of Ponca City (3 Years) and
• Mid-Continent Petroleum of Okmulgee (1 year)

And while he always earned high marks and yearly awards for safe driving, Crim soon developed a reputation for often being the first to arrive at scenes of accidents, administering first aid, and sometimes performing heroic acts.

In 1938, Crim was filling a 1,000-gallon underground gasoline storage tank from his truck at the MK&O bus terminal in downtown Tulsa. At one step in the process, he had to remove the cap from the underground tank to gauge capacity. With the cap off, fumes from the tank crept across the concrete floor to the opposite wall. At the same moment, a worker began operating an arc-weld torch at the opposite wall. A spark from the arc-weld torch ignited the gas fumes. Flames swept across the concrete floor toward Crim and the 1,000 gallons of gasoline. Reacting instantly, without thought of his safety, Crim smothered the area around the opening to the underground storage tank with a tarpaulin, then, with the flames lapping around his legs, quickly screwed the cap back onto the truck. He then extinguished the flames burning about his legs. Crim received only “slight singes” from the fire. However, were it not for Crim’s quick-thinking, the entire bus station with several dozen waiting passengers might have been blown to pieces had the gas tank exploded.

Another accident happened in October 1940 when a driver of a Mid-Continent truck had an accident and caught fire. Crim was one of the first on the scene and with the help of another passerby, carried Guy Arnold from the burning wreckage and surely kept him from burning to death.

Military Service

Carl Crim enlisted in the United States Army on April 12, 1944 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

For the duration of World War II, he hauled tanks, trucks and other heavy equipment for the Army in the southwestern Pacific arena. When he wasn’t involved in military combat in the Pacific Theater, on occasion he would step in to the boxing ring which was his way “of getting in trouble.”

Post Military Career

After his discharge from the service, Carl Crim returned home to his family in Okmulgee and began work as a driver for two years at H.C. Price of Bartlesville.

By June 1947, he switched jobs and started working at Hugh Breeding Inc., a firm he would serve at for almost the next twenty years. Crim would work for Breeding as a Leased Operator, owning his own 46-foot, 5,700 gallon tank truck and leasing it on jobs. He drove out of the company’s Okmulgee terminal and hauled gasoline and other products from the Phillips Petroleum Company refinery at Okmulgee. He serviced all gasoline stations along the Turner Turnpike and in Salina, Kansas, Claremore and Bristow.

In 1948, he was first on the scene following a head-on collision between two tractor semi-trailer units in West Tulsa. Crim carried a Frisco Transportation Company driver from his flaming vehicle to safety, thereby saving his life.

In 1954, just south of Beggs, Oklahoma, a car skidded off an ice-coated pavement and balanced on a creek bank. Crim came upon the accident and pulled two men from the wreckage. One apparently was not hurt badly, the other seemed to have internal injuries. The man who seemed unhurt later died as a result of the wreck.

On July 25, 1956, Crim had been visiting one of his customers at Claremore. As he reached a point approximately nine miles south of Claremore, a pickup started to pass a late model sedan and ran head-on into a state highway truck. The pickup overturned and a female passenger was seriously injured. Again, Crim was first on the scene as he pulled the injured people from the cars, applied first aid to the injured, sent for the Highway Patrol and ambulance, then assisted in traffic control until the injured people were removed and the highway cleared.

On another occasion, Crim removed a man, already dead, from the tangled masses of a crashed car, and applied first aid for twenty minutes in an unsuccessful attempt to revive him.

Oklahoma Driver of the Month Award

In March 1958, Carl Crim received the “Driver of the Month” award at a luncheon by the Oklahoma Council of Safety Supervisors and The Associated Motor Carriers of Oklahoma. Crim was selected for the month of February, 1958 on the basis of having driven 26 years and an accumulated mileage of 1,477,581 miles without any type of an accident and maintaining a perfect safety record. The judges of the contest were Chief of Police Roy Bergman, Oklahoma City Council Manager Dan Hollingsworth and Oklahoma Traffic Judge P. James Demopolos.

The “Driver of the Month” program was operated on the basis of nomination from the various carriers for drivers that had an outstanding safety record or accomplished some outstanding heroic deed. A driver was selected each month and then became elgible to participate for the “Driver of the Year” award in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma Driver of the Year Award

In November 1958, Carl Crim was named Oklahoma’s Truck Driver of the Year at the 28th annual convention of The Associated Motor Carriers of Oklahoma, Inc. held at the Hotel Tulsa.

Called from among the group of drivers-of-the-month who were convention guests of their employers, Crim was virtually speechless when his name was announced. Crim’s wife accompanied him to the speaker’s stand where he received a beautifully worded citation and $50 Savings Bond given by The Associated Motor Carriers of Oklahoma, a handsome trophy given by Transport Insurance Company, Dallas, Texas; and a portable television and pair of fine binoculars given by The Oklahoma Council of Motor Carrier Safety Supervisors.

The selection committee composed of P. James Demopolos, Judge of the Oklahoma City Municipal Court, Dan Hollingsworth, Director, Oklahoma City Safety Council and Clifford L. Phillips, District Supervisor, Bureau of Motor Carriers, Interstate Commerce Commission were unanimous in their decision that Crim’s record of safe driving, coupled with acts of heroism above and beyond the call of duty entitled him to be named Driver of the Year.

Officials of the state drivers’ association were impressed most by the story of how Crim’s fast-thinking may have saved the life of dozens of persons in a Tulsa bus terminal. This, with his safe-driving record of 1,500,000 miles, and other acts of heroism involving automobile accidents, were the prime factors in consideration of Crim for the state driving award.

After winning the State award, Crim was entered in competition for the national “Truck Driver of the Year” award.

National Driver of the Year Award

On May 21, 1959, Carl Crim received a telegram from the American Trucking Associations (ATA) in Washington DC which designated him as the National Truck Driver of the Year.

Crim was chosen from candidates named by every state encompassing more than 9,000,000 truck drivers in total. He was cited for a long record of administering first aid assisting at accident scenes and risking his own life to save others. His record showed that he has saved the life of a friend who was drowning, and has administered first aid in at least five other accidents.

Heading the committee of judges for the Driver of the Year competition was John J. Allen, Under Secretary of Commerce for Transportation. Other judges included Brig. Gen. E. Herbert Qualls, director of the Bureau of Motor Carriers, Interstate Commerce Commission; Arthur C. Butler, director of the National Highway Users Conference, and Edward F. Jones, staff director Subcommittee on Traffic, Safety of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce.

In the days after winning the award for Driver of the Year, Crim was literally swamped with telephone calls, telegrams, and letters of congratulations. Among the wires received by Crim were ones from US Sen. Robert S. Kerr and Oklahoma Congressmen Ed Edmondson, Carl Albert, Tom Steed and Page Belcher.

Awards Tour

Carl Crim and his wife were also awarded an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C. to receive the award and from there it was on to New York City where they would stay at the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Just a few days before he left for Washington, however, Crim had the closest brush he’d had in his years as a professional driver. He was on Highway 66 near West Bristow, Oklahoma, hauling 5,700 gallons of high test ethyl gas at about 8:30 in the morning when he saw a car coming at him, the left wheel about a foot across the center line. Crim blasted his air horn, but that didn’t help. Crim hit the shoulder and missed the vehicle by about 2 or 3 inches.

On June 1, 1959, Crim and his wife set out for Washington DC. Upon arrival in the nation’s capital, there was a steady stream of activities planned. The list of places they visited ranged from the Capitol Building, the Library of Congress, Mount Vernon, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial, Smithsonian Institute, and the Washington Cathedral. They took a personal tour through the FBI Building in Washington and met J. Edgar Hoover.

The Crim’s paid a visit to the the legislative branch of the federal government, and while there, Oklahoma congressman Ed Edmondson brought up Crim’s name for being the country’s top driver and it was recorded in the Congressional Record on page A4978.

On June 3, 1959 Crim and his wife got the opportunity to meet Vice President Richard Nixon. The Crim’s were led into Nixon’s inner sanctum by ATA General Manager Ray G. Atherton. The Vice President then shook hands with Crim and then awarded him with a diamond pin for being America’s Truck Driver of the Year. The gold pin had a diamond in it and was symbolic of the award which is sponsored by the American Trucking Associations. Nixon then congratulated Crim on his safety record.

Nixon wanted to know all about the life of a truck driver. In response to questions by Nixon, Crim said he drank coffee and chewed gum to keep awake when driving nights, and that he had seen considerable improvements in his industry.

After leaving Washington, the Crim’s traveled on to New York for the second part of their trip sponsored by the American Trucking Associations. He also appeared on several national television and radio programs and was interviewed by a number of nationally known writers. He was also supposed to appear on television during the Ed Sullivan Show but a comedian ran over the allotted time right at the end of the show and there wasn’t enough time left.

While in New York, Crim got to meet fellow Oklahoman, Mickey Mantle who personally autographed two baseballs for Crim.

Upon returning to Okmulgee, Oklahoma, special recognition was accorded to Crim on July 3, 1959 as the town observed “Carl Crim Day” in conjunction with the seventh annual Pioneer Pow Wow celebration. Along with honoring Crim, there were turtle races, talent shows, entertainment at the Pioneer Palace and on the third night, a rodeo. Taking a “busman’s holiday,” Crim appeared for the opening day parade driving his truck.

On July 3, 1959 as part of the day-long activities, Mayor T.P. Gilmer and Earl McClendon, Chamber of Commerce president, presided at a special program at 2 PM on the Council House square. Among the persons present in the audience was Jack Holland, an official of the Hugh Breeding Inc. McClendon served as master of ceremonies and presented Crim with a matched set of luggage.

Mayor Gilmer presented Crim a watch which was engraved with an inscription saying it was from his fellow citizens on the day honoring him.

A few months later on September 4, 1959, Crim and his wife traveled to Oklahoma City where he was honored with a testimonial luncheon at the Biltmore Hotel. J. Robert Cooper, president of ATA, was on hand to deliver the principal address for the occasion. The huge four-foot high National Driver of the Year trophy was displayed after the presentation by president Cooper.

Climaxing the affair was the presentation of a new electric range to Crim’s wife by Rufus B. Jones, assistant to the president of Trailmobile.

Over the remainder of 1959, Crim received much notoriety for winning the National Driver of the Year Award. He was featured on the cover of Petroleum and Chemical Transporter Magazine and in several advertisements; one for Autocar and in another with International Harvester where he shared space with the 1959 AL Cy Young Award winner, Early Wynn.

Advice for Safe Driving

Many reporters who interviewed Crim wanted to know what attributes went into making a great driver. Crim suggested these six rules for safe driving:

• Be in good spirits. Leave your quarrels behind you.
• Don’t drive for more than two hours without a coffee break or a stretch.
• Stay within all speed limits
• Obey all orders of highway patrols. The police are there for your protection.
• Know your equipment. Check your tires and brakes and be able to judge distances.
• Be courteous. Give the right of way to others.

Personal Life

In 1937, Carl Crim met Steffie Skales, who was working in a local café when Crim decided to ask her out. Within, two weeks, the young couple decided to get married. They would remain married for forty years.

During their marriage, Crim would often sit on their porch swing and sing songs from Johnny Lee Wills to pass the evenings.

Crim went by the nicknames “Curly” or “Pee Wee.”

Carl had converted to the Catholic Faith and was confirmed on May 8, 1959 by Bishop Victor J. Reed. For many years, he was a member of St. Anthony’s parish in Okmulgee.

Hobbies

Hunting and fishing were his special hobbies and they eventually led him to make trips to Canada and Alaska.

Crim also liked to spend time with his beloved bird dogs, Sport and Sailor.

Another of Carl’s hobbies was pen collecting. Each time he would drive into a new town, he would collect an ink pen from each filling station he went to. Over the course of his career, Crim collected somewhere around 1,700 ballpoint pens with advertising slogans on them – all kept neatly packed away in a foot locker.

When Crim had met Vice President Nixon in 1959, he had the presence of mind to use the opportunity to enlarge his collection of ball-point advertising pens. Carl wrangled one from an aide of President Eisenhower during his tour of the White House. Then when he met Nixon, Carl took occasion to remark that he had met a friend of the Vice President and the friend had come away with a nice pen. Nixon commented that he wouldn’t be outdone and reached into a desk drawer for one of his pens. Crim continued to explain that he liked these pens with advertising on them. The Vice President paused, smiled and pointing to his own name on the pen he was handing to Carl, remarked that he guessed you can call that advertising!

Retirement and Final Years

In 1964, Hugh Breeding Inc. closed their terminal in Okmulgee and Carl Crim began his employment at Transport Insurance.

In 1968, Crim and his wife would leave Okmulgee and move to Tulsa. He would continue working for quite a few more years, eventually accumulating over three million accident-free miles.

Crim passed away in February 1978 at a Tulsa hospital following a lengthy illness. At the time of his death, he was 62 years old. He was interred at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa.