2017 Landstar All-Star Truck Giveaway Winner

“What do you do about two illegally parked frogs?” Landstar Million Mile Safe Driver Dickie Penrod asked while getting his picture taken in front of his brand new Western Star 5700XE.

“They get toad!” Penrod laughed and so did everyone around him. His laughter is infectious. Penrod’s happy-go-lucky personality comes through with every word he speaks.

When Penrod won the red-pearl 2017 Western Star 5700XE during the Landstar BCO All-Star Celebration held in July, the first thing he did was call to his wife who was off stage.

“Leslie, Leslie, get up here. Oh my gosh!” Penrod was breathless from the shock of winning the keys to the Landstar All-Star giveaway truck. He says he was weak in the knees when he realized that he’d won. “I really thought I was going down for a second there. It was just an incredible feeling. I never win, I never imagined anything like this would happen to me.”

Penrod, who just turned 70, is a Veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and the Army. After he retired with the 82nd Airborne Division, Penrod was recruited by a trucking company, and 14 months later he decided to buy his first truck. A decision Penrod made so that he could become an owner-operator with Landstar.

“In 1999, I was going down the road in Davenport, Iowa when I saw a banner that read ‘Landstar.’ I just pulled in and applied. They called me two weeks later and said, ‘You gotta go buy a truck.’”

Penrod says, he bought a truck and the rest was history. In 2008, less than 10 years after leasing on, Penrod earned 1 million safe miles with Landstar. He smiles when he recalls the phone call he received about the accomplishment.

“She said, ‘Are you hands-free?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And she says, you just reached 1 million safe miles. I asked, ‘Are you going to pay me a dollar per mile?’ She thought that was funny. So I said, ‘Okay how ‘bout a penny a mile?’ No go on that either,” Penrod laughed at the memory.

Now Penrod says, Landstar has given him another memory he’ll never forget – the time he stood on stage at the BCO All-Star Celebration in front of an audience filled with Landstar’s most elite business capacity owners (BCOs) and their families, cheering for him as he held up the keys to his new truck.

Landstar Million Mile Safe Driver Dickie Penrod was one of eight semi-finalists and one of four finalists selected randomly in the Landstar All-Star Truck Giveaway exclusively reserved for a Landstar Million Mile Safe Driver or Landstar Roadstar, the company’s highest honor for business capacity owners (BCOs).

The 2017 Western Star 5700XE tractor features a proprietary Detroit powertrain and a 68ʺ High Roof Stratosphere sleeper.