Ludwigs sell truck line
Staff reporter
It started with a team of horses and a wagon. It ended more than 80 years later with 15 employees, a fleet of trucks, and more than a semi load of memories.
Ron "Bunk" and Kathleen Ludwig sold the family business, Ludwig Truck Line, Inc. of Florence, in December to Floyd Wild, Inc.
"It was time," Ron said. "I'm ready to retire."
It was decided to offer the business to an outside company.
"The company we sold the business to has been around for 69 years," Ron said.
Floyd Wild is deceased and his sons, Lenny and Denny, now operate the business, much like the past operation of the Ludwig family business.
Based in Minnesota, a terminal is located in Newton where 13 of the 15 former Ludwig Truck Lines employees currently work, including sons Doug and Dan Ludwig.
Selling the family company, which was the oldest trucking company in Kansas, was bittersweet for the couple but they were pleased to find a suitable company, much like their own.
"I negotiated with the company so our employees could go to work for them," Ron said.
With those negotiations, Floyd Wild, Inc. also maintained the drivers' seniority status.
"We had some drivers who were with us for 10-14 years," Ron said, "and of course our sons who were with us for more than 20 years."
Doug was a driver and Dan, who started as a driver, was a dispatcher at the time the company was sold.
The company's fiscal year ends in March, so for now the doors of Ludwig Truck Lines remain open — at least when Ron comes into the office every day to check on business.
After March, the building will be sold.
Seizing an opportunity
Ron is not exactly sure when his father, Sam Ludwig, actually started hauling goods with a wagon for other people.
Sam and his family lived in the former community of Homestead.
On June 15, 1922, Sam purchased a Model T Ford truck for $600.
"A neighbor was building a new house and told my dad that if he bought a truck he could haul all of the building materials," Ron said. "So he did."
The house that Sam "helped" build near the Homestead community, east of Florence, is still there.
Sam used the truck to haul pretty much whatever people wanted and needed. People would let him know what they needed in town and he would deliver it to them.
He made many trips to the Wichita stockyards, hauling livestock in the small bed of the truck. No easy fete in the 1920s and 1930s.
"In those days the roads were dirt until you got near Wichita, and then they were brick," Ron said.
Sam bought his first tractor-trailer in 1941. The operation continued out of the Ludwig home at Homestead until the family moved to Florence in 1947.
Boy meets girl
Ron served in Korea with the U.S. Army as a truck driver and dispatcher. He returned to his hometown in 1955 and attended a Florence High School basketball game.
"I was a basketball nut, still am," Ron said.
There at the gym entrance was Kathleen Taylor, the new high school home economics teacher from Oklahoma. It was practically love at first sight.
"From the minute I saw her, I knew I had to meet her," he said.
The young teacher was fresh out of college and had accepted her first teaching job at Florence because of the pay.
"They would post job openings on a bulletin board at my college," Kathleen said.
There were lists of jobs in Kansas and Oklahoma.
"At that time, Kansas paid $400 a year more than Oklahoma, so I decided to come to Kansas," she said. At that time, teachers were paid $3,200 per year.
Kathleen's mother was not pleased with the decision. Her mother was concerned that her daughter would not return to Oklahoma and she was right.
Five months later, the two were wed and have been together ever since.
Kathleen continued to teach until her first child was born and then became a stay-at-home mom, homemaker, and eventually a partner in the trucking business.
The next generation
On Jan. 1, 1964, Sam retired and Ron and Kathleen purchased the family business. They operated the trucking firm from the basement of their home, southwest of Florence.
Sons Doug and Dan got involved — both as truck drivers and Dan eventually became a dispatcher.
"These are the only jobs they've known," Ron said.
Ron, an experienced truck driver himself for more than 30 years, had been involved in the business almost all of his life, driving his first load of cattle to Kansas City at the age of 16.
"It took seven hours one way," he recalled, "and that was when the roads were good."
The business remained in the basement of the family's home until 1989 when the former REA warehouse on U.S.-77 on the south side of Florence was purchased and remodeled for office space.
"There wasn't much 're' in the remodeling," Kathleen joked, indicating it was more of a "modeling" or construction job. "We outgrew the office space long before we moved."
Besides being the oldest Kansas-based trucking company, the company can boast that it had customers in 48 states.
A new chapter begins
The first order of business for the retired couple is a trip to California.
"We're going to go see Bob Barker," Kathleen said excitedly, with a glint in her eye.
The couple and friends Jack and Glenda Taylor of Marion have tickets in the spring for the television show of The Price is Right.
They'll travel by Amtrak, a new experience for the foursome, and will stay probably a couple of weeks to see the sights of the west coast.
In June, the Ludwigs hope to travel to the northwest part of the U.S., pulling their fifth wheel. Traveling in this fashion is no stranger to them. They drove to Alaska in 2003, pulling their camper. That trip lasted seven weeks.
The well-known Florence couple have dedicated much of their lives to the local community. Ron served for 12 years on the Marion-Florence School Board.
Kathleen served on the Florence school board before the school district was consolidated with Marion.
They attend and remain active in the same church in which they were wed and support local chamber and community events.
In addition to their sons, Doug and Dan, the couple also has two daughters — Tawnya Sokoll of Wichita and Rolana Heidebrecht of Marion, and seven grandchildren.
As this chapter closes, Bunk and Kathleen appreciate their loyal customers and employees, and plan to approach this next chapter of their lives with the same zeal and enthusiasm.
