Did you know the month of March is officially Women's History Month? To mark it this year, a group of truckers is embarking with author/photographer Anne-Marie Michel on a book tour convoy making its way across the country with Michel's excellent "Sisters of the Road" book. Owner-operator and 2023 Overdrive Trucker of the Year semifinalist Debbie Desiderato will be toting Michel's award-winning portrait gallery in mobile format, starting in San Francisco en route to a photography event in Houston the second week of the month.
"From there," Desiderato said, they'll stop at TA Petro Citizen Driver award winner and longtime trucker Idella Hansen's Petro in Little Rock, tour sponsor Uber Freight's "corporate office in Rogers, Arkansas, then on to Louisville" in time for the Mid-America Trucking Show starting March 21.
This image depicts the rough route for the tour. Owner-operator Desiderato (also pictured in the circle) noted the convoy would embark initially from the Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front park in Richmond, California.
Overdrive's own Long Haul Paul Marhoefer, regular readers may recall, reviewed Michel's book, calling its portraits of female operators "haunting" and "iconographic" in their treatment of the subject matter. Even better than what's there, as Marhoefer wrote in September 2022 of the review and a talk with Michel, is what's not:
Bereft from "Sisters of the Road" are obligatory tropes of perpetual trucker victimology that have seemed to permeate nearly every published tome on this profession since 1980. Missing, as well, are Michel's own interjections on all that is wrong with "the industry." What surprises the reader in "Sisters of the Road" is that it stands on its own as a powerful homage of haunting, iconographic beauty to the fierce resilience of America's female truckers and the mythic spaces through which they travel.
Through which you can travel, too, notes Uber Freight's Sam Hallock, as part of the convoy.
The brokerage and its freight platform, Hallock said, will try to help owner-operators/carriers interested in participating match to loads in the Uber Freight network that could get them to the convoy. It will run behind owner-operator Desiderato and the mobile gallery "which will be housed in a 53-foot trailer," Hallock added. Several of the 40 featured operators in Michel's book are using Uber Freight's Powerloop drop-hook system to convoy cross country, she said.
Those interested in joining the convoy should reach out to Sam Hallock via her email address with the following details: Name and location, MC and DOT numbers, load preference (dry van/reefer, live loads), and the best method of contact.
Hallock said her company is "thrilled to support 'Sisters of the Road' and play a pivotal role in raising awareness about the incredible work and lives of the country's female truck drivers" with the sponsorship. "A convoy of female drivers makes a powerful statement."
I'd certainly recommend finding the gallery at MATS for those of you who will be there. As something of a preview, catch some of the portraits from Michel's book and Long Haul Paul's talk with the photographer via this link.
[Related: Masterful management, mechanical prowess pay off for 20-year independent Debbie Desiderato]
