Junior Foley of Eldon is the 2009 Missouri Trucking Association Driver of the Year. A driver for Opies Transport in Eldon for 44 years, Foley received the award March 18, 2010, at the association's 63rd annual safety award banquet at the Lodge of Four Seasons in Lake Ozark.
The event was sponsored by the Missouri Trucking Association Council of Safety Supervisors and honored the trucking industry's finest safety and driving professionals from around the state.
Foley, who was Missouri driver of the month for June 2009, was selected from the field of 12 monthly honorees. He was selected from nominations submitted by a number of other trucking companies from around the state.
Foley was selected for the prestigious safety award by representatives of the United States Department of Transportation, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Missouri Department of Transportation and the Division of Highway Safety.
Foley has been employed as a local farm milk pickup driver at Opies Transport, Inc. in Eldon since Sept. 2, 1966, and has driven more than 2.2 million miles for the company with only one unpreventable accident in his 44-year driving career.
During his driving career, Foley has hauled more than 45 million gallons of milk from central Missouri dairy farms to milk processing plants in Missouri and Illinois.
Since 1977, he has also managed the farm pickup operation for Opies Transport, Inc. and has served more than 120 local dairy farms.
Junior Foley had been previously selected as Driver of the Month by the Missouri Trucking Association in the year 1991.
Prior to employment at Opies Transport, Inc., Junior Foley served in the United States Army, serving active duty in Germany as a truck driver.
He and his wife, Kathy, have been married for 43 years. They have two children: Steve Foley, pastor of First Family Church in Osage Beach, and his wife Amy; and daughter Tammy Stone, a fourth grade teacher at Camdenton, and her husband Buck Stone.
Junior and Kathy also have five grandchildren: Derek, Nathan and Samuel Foley, and Morgan and Mallory Stone. Junior is a member of First Family Church, and he and his wife enjoy traveling.
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