WIT member Shannon Smith featured in Oprah Winfreys O Magazine
WIT member Shannon Smith featured in O Magazine. (Courtesy WIT)
The Trucker News Services
5/31/2012
PLOVER, Wis. Trucker Shannon Smith, a member of Women In Trucking since 2007, is the subject of a feature story in TV star Oprah Winfreys magazine, O, about unrecognized jobs that support America.
In 2008 Smith was interviewed by Career World magazine where she talked about her childhood desire to drive a truck and the story was discovered by Jeanne Marie Laskas, who wrote the story in O, and who als! o is wri ting a book about the subject, according to WIT.
As a child, Smith watched big rigs on the highway in her home state of Georgia and told herself one day she would blow that horn.
Her dad was a diesel mechanic and gave her some advice: Learn how to fix an engine if she wanted to drive an 18-wheeler. Smith took that to heart and joined up with the Army Reserves because they could teach her how.
At the ripe old age of 23 Smith, who lives in Cleveland, attended truck driving school and has been a professional driver since then.
Shannons story has done more to show women that they can have a great career as a professional driver by sharing her story with O Magazine than this industry could have imagined, said Ellen Voie, president and CEO of Women In Trucking.
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