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4 Truckers Named Finalists for Goodyear's North America Highway Hero Award    

16 January 2001

4 Truckers Named Finalists for Goodyear's North America Highway Hero Award    

    AKRON, Ohio, Jan. 15 Four professional truck drivers who
risked their own lives to help others have been selected as finalists for the
2000 Goodyear North America Highway Hero Award, the trucking industry's most
prestigious award for heroism.
    (Photo:  NewsCom:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20010115/CLM009 )
    The finalists will receive a $10,000 savings bond and an all-expense-paid
trip to the Daytona 500 in February. On March 21, the drivers will be
introduced to the trucking industry at the Mid-America Trucking Show in
Louisville, Ky., and one of the drivers will be named the 2000 Goodyear North
America Highway Hero.
    The finalists are:

    * David Zorn of Forest Park, GA -- Traveling through Norcross, Georgia, on
      Nov. 21, 1999, Zorn witnessed an officer being attacked on the side of
      the road. The suspect had pinned the officer and was trying to get his
      gun. However, when Zorn stopped to assist, the suspect fled. Brandishing
      a large flashlight, Zorn pursued the suspect, caught him and held him
      until police arrived. Zorn is a driver for Consolidated Freightways.

    * Brent Shupe of Charleston, IL -- On June 30, another vehicle collided
      with Shupe's truck and caught on fire. Shupe rescued two female
      passengers from the burning car and turned his attention to the elderly
      driver. While trying to free him, Shupe was thrown against a guardrail
      when his truck's refrigerator unit exploded. By that time, the driver
      crawled out of the car but seemed unable to move any farther. Shupe
      dragged him away from the car, seconds before it exploded. Shupe
      suffered burns on his arm from the first explosion. Shupe is a driver
      for Midwest Coast Transport.

    * Edward Bowlin of Black Mountain, NC -- On Nov. 10, 1999, Bowlin had
      parked his rig at a store parking lot when he saw a woman being
      intentionally run down by a motorist. The motorist, the woman's
      estranged husband, then jumped out of the car and began stabbing her in
      the chest. Bowlin tackled the assailant and pinned him to the ground
      until police arrived. The woman, the mother of two young children,
      survived the attack. Bowlin is a driver for Payne Trucking.

    * Carl Tafua of San Jose, CA -- While passing through Santa Clara on
      Aug. 12, Tafua noticed an 8-year-old girl screaming at a man who was
      pursuing her. The girl ran toward Tafua's truck, and, when she got in,
      she told him she had been kidnapped. Tafua called his dispatcher, who
      contacted police, and then he took down the license plate number of the
      fleeing suspect. The suspect was later arrested for having kidnapped the
      girl two days earlier. Tafua is a driver for Viking Freight.

    "We should all feel a little safer knowing there are courageous
individuals like these men on our roadways," said Rick Howell, Goodyear's
marketing director for commercial systems. "During the 18 years since the
inception of the Highway Hero program, we have heard about hundreds of truck
drivers who placed themselves in harm's way to save someone else, and we think
it is important that they be recognized publicly."
    The finalists were selected out of 22 state and provincial winners
throughout the United States and Canada. A panel of judges, consisting of
members of the trucking and tire trade media, will select the 2000 Goodyear
North America Highway Hero.