Third-grader gives heartfelt endorsement of Trucker Buddy

Veronika Kurimska and 'Trucker Buddy Frank' The Trucker/Dorothy Cox

By DOROTHY COX
The Trucker Staff

3/28/2008

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In all Trucker Buddy’s years of existence, surely it could not have found a more ardent, well-spoken nor passionate fan than Veronika Kurimska, a slight, blonde third-grader at John S. Hobart Elementary School in Shirley, N.Y.

Competently reading from a letter co-written by her classmates back in New York, a seemingly poised  but self-described nervous Veronika publicly commended her class’s Trucker Buddy, Frank Nathanson of Staten Island, N.Y.

She told attendees at a Trucker Buddy meeting at the Mid-America Trucking Show here today that “Trucker Buddy Frank” helped her class learn all about the U.S. through his photos and postcards, noting that he “has been very generous with his time.”

She said that “our brains really get a workout” through his correspondence and e-mails, not to mention the Web site he built for the class.

She told the group he included on the site safety tips and such words of wisdom as “failure is not an option,” or “when in doubt, think,” or just to remember to “be courteous.”

And she added, “He spends his hard-earned money on us.”

Nathanson was Trucker Buddy of the Month for May 2007 and one of many such selfless men and women honored at the group’s annual meeting at MATS.

Veronika’s teacher, Deborah Penney, said it was impossible to recount the depths to which Nathanson has touched the lives of Miss Kurimska and the other 8- and 9-year-olds in her class.

Veronika told of one storm Nathanson was in: “there were thunderstorms and the possibility of tornados,” she recounted. And, she added, that while it was interesting to learn about what the weather was doing, “We just wanted him to be safe.”

Seeing Nathanson beam at seeing one of his third-grade buddies do so well in her first public speaking engagement, it was easy to see that the admiration went both ways.