Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
It is estimated that three percent of Americans have worked at the same job for 25 years. The average American holds between 10 and 15 jobs in a lifetime. To work at the same job for 50 years is nearly unheard of, but that’s exactly what Kenny Hall, of Marlinton, has done.
In early July, Burns Motor Freight held a celebration for Hall who has been with the company for five decades.
Hall started working at the business when he was still in high school, washing trucks and doing odds and ends.
“We had cattle trailers and he put straw in them and cleaned them up,” Mike Burns said. “We were hauling cattle back then, or sheep. He was washing trucks and trailers.
Dad [Larry Burns] looked at Kenny and made the comment, ‘I give him one week,’” Mike recalled. “He was just a skinny ol’ thing with long hair.”
Not only did Hall last longer than a week, but he has been with Burns longer than he has been married to his wife, Margie.
“I worked here three years before I was married,” Hall said. “I worked for Murl Chestnut at Dunmore in the summer, but this was my first title job.”
When Hall became a full-time employee after high school, he was a tech and through the years he worked his way up to shop manager.
In addition to dedicating time to Burns Motor Freight, Hall was also a member of the Marlinton Fire Department, where he served as chief for a time.
While discussing his time at the company, Mike asked Hall why he didn’t leave to work on the VEPCO dam when it was being built.
“I don’t know,” Hall replied. “I’m not that religious, but I think the Lord had something to do with it. You never know. I just hung in there. My friends were making all the big bucks over there, then didn’t have nothing after that.”
Hall said he does remember a time he thought about quitting and Larry said, “go on,” but he never followed through. He said there wasn’t an argument or anything that led to the thought and that he enjoyed working at Burns, so he stayed.
“I’ve worked with good people,” he said.
In his 50 years at Burns, Hall has worked on and maintained 691 trucks.
“We like to set up a four-year cycle,” Mike said. “We pushed that out a bit because these trucks are a little bit better. They last longer.”
There are hundreds of stories that illustrate Hall’s dedication to the job and a few funny tales that always bring out the laughter.
One of the most notable stories is from the 1985 flood, which could have devastated the company if it weren’t for people like Hall who was there, helping move trucks and getting equipment up out of the flood water.
“I was living right up there in the trailer court,” Hall said. “It sent my trailer down to the fence. I lost my trailer, but I was here working every day.”
Mike said all he had to do was call Kenny, no matter what time of day, and he would be there to help. They were moving trucks at 3 a.m., trying to salvage what they could.
Because of that dedication, none of the trucks had to be scrapped after the flood. There is a blue line on the shop wall that shows how high the water got – it was more than eight feet.
For Mike, Hall was a trainer before he was a fellow employee. When Mike joined the company, his dad wanted him to go through all the different positions to get a better understanding of what the company and the employees did.
When Mike was a trainee under Hall, he learned how to do diagnostics on the trucks and helped get the trucks road ready.
“We had a truck come in and it needed an air compressor,” Mike recalled. “Kenny said, ‘you know where it’s at, I’ll go with you to the bottom of the steps and you bring it down.’ I went up the steps. That thing, I figure was 150 pounds. I was struggling with it. I came down the steps, and it broke through the bottom of the box.
“It chipped the floor, hit my big toe and broke it,” he continued. “I landed on the ground and I’m hollering. Kenny says, ‘thanks for the air compressor,’ and goes to put it on the truck.”
“It had to get done,” Hall added. “The driver was waiting on me.”
The two laughed about the memory, one of a million they have had through the years.
Hall has become so well known in the community for his mechanical skills that he often gets calls from people who have questions about their own vehicles or farm equipment.
“It’s amazing how many people come here just to talk to him about equipment,” Doug Burns said. “Doesn’t even have to be a big truck. It could be a tractor. It could be anything. There’s nothing he hasn’t seen.”
“We always hear, ‘Kenny line one, Kenny line four,’ and I’m like, do I ever get calls,” Mike added, laughing. “Sometimes when Kenny is busy, I’ll pick up the call and they say, ‘I’m calling Kenny,’ and I tell them well, you’ve got me. How can I help you?”
Hall has been with the company so long that the Burns consider him one of the family.
He said he has thought about retiring but plans to continue to work for now.
“It’s a neat story because he started at the bottom, washing trucks right out of high school and then worked in the trailer shop and worked his way all the way up to shop foreman,” Doug said. “It’s just a very unique story.”
