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OUT OF THE ASHES Photo by Bob Pennell Suddenly out of work following the Boise Cascade mill fire in September, Dave and Terri Campfield found a new life traveling the United States in a long-haul truck. New road warriors pay their dues Former mill couple say jury's still out on trucking career By JONEL ALECCIA EDITOR'S NOTE -- About this series: Terry and Dave Campfield are among families who lost jobs in the 1998 fire that destroyed Medford's Boise Cascade Corp mill. The Mail Tribune is following three such families, chronicling their efforts to rebuild their lives. Rebuilt mill could open by August Boise Cascade Corp. officials say the company's reconstructed mill could be partially open by August. "We're making pretty good progress," company spokesman Bob Smith said Monday. Construction began in March, a few weeks earlier than anticipated. The walls of the first section of the 300,000-square-foot building are complete, and a metal roof goes on this week, Smith said. The new plant will employ about 140 people, roughly a third of the 450 who worked at the mill before it was destroyed in a Labor Day fire. Smith said about that many people have been rehired since the fire, either to work at the company's White City mills or to do maintenance and construction at the Medford site. Others will be hired when the mill reopens. The plant will dry veneer, the sheets used to produce plywood, and prepare the laminated veneer panels that Boise Cascade uses at its White City plant to make laminated veneer lumber. The company is still considering a second phase of rebuilding that would boost the number of jobs to about 330. A decision on that expansion isn't expected until next year. Terri Campfield unfolds a map of the United States traced with more blue lines than a slab of Roquefort cheese. It's been just seven weeks since she and her husband, Dave Campfield, started trucking on their own as operators with Interstate Distribution Corp. of Tacoma, Wash. But the blue marker she uses to track their travels already has logged more than 40,000 miles. "We've been as far east as Ocala, Florida, and as far south as Laredo, Texas," says Terri. "We've gone up north to Laramie, Wyoming, and then up almost to the Canadian border." That's a long way and a lot of truck-stop coffee from the couple's former employment down the road from their Medford home. Until last September, Terri, 40, and Dave, 42, worked at Boise Cascade Corp. They lost their jobs when a 1998 Labor Day fire destroyed the largest plywood mill in the West. Like many of the 450 workers who found themselves unemployed, the Campfields faced mid-career crises. They chose to cope by enrolling in a truck-driving instruction program at Rogue Community College. After eight weeks of classes and five weeks of training, they found themselves on the road with their own big rig, heading for everywhere. "I'd never been to Vegas in my whole life," says Dave, home for a four-day visit. "I've been there six times now." In fact, the couple say they've hauled loads of aluminum, dog food and clothes from the Gap and Old Navy stores past some of the prettiest sights in the United States. "We were coming into St. Louis at night and the moon was just behind the arch," recalls Dave. "It was something." Terri chimes in: "And I would have never thought that Tennessee and parts of Oklahoma were so beautiful," she says. They couldn't stop at many of those beautiful places, Terri notes, although they did manage to visit a Budweiser brewery near Denver, Colo. "I couldn't taste the beer!" Terri says. "It was my turn to drive." As team truckers, the pair share 24-hour driving duty, switching off every 10 hours or so to allow each other to sleep. So far, pay for their new job is good, the Campfields say. The couple earn 34 cents a mile, which works out to $11.23 apiece per hour. That's about what they made at Boise, where he was a spreader and she plugged knots and checked veneer. But, they add, there's the potential to make much more. "Every time those wheels are rolling, it's money," says Dave. "There's money there if you want to run." The highest earners they've met are teams who average 6,000 to 7,000 miles a week and top salaries of $115,000 a year. But the Campfields, who've been putting in 4,000 to 5,000 miles a week, say there's also a price to pay. "You get so tired," says Terri. "The one time we drove 7,000 miles in a week, we were pooped." Coping with exhaustion is a constant problem, she says. The couple sleep most nights in the cab of their green 1997 rig, with the 53-foot trailer stretched out behind. "You cannot sleep across Arkansas," Terri says ruefully. "The roads are so bumpy. I told my family that now I know what a bowl of Jello feels like." As rookie truckers, the pair also have been getting used to maneuvering their rig in all kinds of traffic, from small-town streets to big-city freeways. They've come to dislike two kinds of drivers: those who speed ahead to beat the truck and those who drive too slow in front of it. "My biggest thing is the on-ramps," Terri says. "The slow ones, they don't even look." Still, Terri says she's far more comfortable behind the wheel now than she was back in driver's training class at RCC. "I don't have that terrorized look on my face anymore," she says. "It gets easier." The Campfields have driven through all kinds of weather on all kinds of roads, adjusting to conditions from blinding snow to 115-mph winds. They even drove the Whitebird Grade in Idaho. "It's 8 miles long at a 7.5 percent grade and it was solid ice and snow. That was scary," Dave recalls. Fatigue, traffic and weather haven't been their only obstacles. They've also had to cope with being away from home six weeks out of seven and with being close to each other every minute of every day. "We get along pretty good," Dave says. "She only had one little tissy fit." "I was tired!" protested Terri. "My eyeballs hurt. I couldn't even read the darn map!" The Campfields say they're getting used to their new job, but that the verdict's still out on whether they'd go back to Boise Cascade if they had the chance. Terri is hoping they'll feel more certain about trucking once they get more used to the road. "Like a girlfriend says to me, `Beginnings are scary and endings are sometimes sad,"' she says. "It's kind of like what counts is in the middle." The Campfields pulled out of town again early Monday, set to sketch another blue line on that well-worn map. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA