This time of year, it can be reassuring to know that Maine’s snow-covered roads are kept clear by some of the best plow crews in the country — and two Maine Department of Transportation (MDOT) truck jockeys have the trophy to prove it. Last August Bob “Big Dog” Stuart and Steve “Shemp” Shepard, who both work out of the MDOT’s Kennebunk garage, brought home the national snowplowing championship, to the intense disappointment of California’s team, who thought they had the trophy wrapped up.

Stuart and Shepard took on crews from all over the country at the national finals in Colorado, but just getting out of Maine was no drive around the block. “We had to win three lower-level competitions before we could even go to the state finals in Skowhegan,” points out Stuart, who began competing in 1994.

The pair won on points earned from a written exam, a truck inspection test, and a driving trial that sent them backwards and forwards over a twisting, turning, hair-raising course. “They don’t make it easy,” Shepard says wryly.

California’s team was favored to win, as it has for the past three years. “We called them mudpushers,” Stuart says. “They were from southern California, so mostly they plowed mudslides and practiced a lot.”

Shepard says he plans to compete again next year, but he needs a new partner. Stuart retired in October after twenty-seven years with the MDOT. “I got out before snow-fly,” he says with a grin.
 
The roads and the drivers of Maine will miss him, even if the mudpushers from California don’t.

(Published December 1999)