The White County High School Marching band was recently gifted with a custom semitruck courtesy of TURBO Terminal Tractors in Gainesville.
Michael Pickett, Band Director at White County High School, said the need for the vehicle in the program has been an ongoing issue for years.
“Our program got bigger,” he explained. “As it got bigger, we started to use multiple trailers. And we thought to ourselves, if we could combine everything, for logistical purposes, for functionality and efficiency, if we could get a bigger trailer, the three trailers that we had, it would take us about an hour and a half to load before and after the games.”
To resolve the issue, the band purchased a used furniture moving trailer and had planned to rent the tractor needed to pull the equipment. However, due to COVID-19 policies of tractor-renting companies at the time, they were unable to. That’s when TURBO, a company that specializes in renting and selling tractor-trailers, approached the school about donating the needed equipment.
“They contacted us approximately two years ago to start giving us the tractor,” Pickett said. “And then they also wanted to take our trailer and fix it up and do some stuff to make the tractor and the trailer match.”
The company donated the tractor in memory of Jerry Thomas, a former TURBO employee who passed away in 2018. Thomas, who was with the company for the majority of his career, always felt very passionately about investing in children within the community.
“He did a lot of things for Youth and Students,” Pickett said. “And they thought that that would really honor his memory by donating the tractor-trailer.”
The White County Band currently hosts 120 students — a number the program anticipates to see grow within the coming years. Pickett emphasized that when the surprise was revealed to the program on August 21, the students were thrilled.
“They were screaming and jumping up and down because it's nice to let them have something to be proud of,” he said, “And the only reason we have that is because of TURBO.”
