Gary Sperling died on the job, which surprised no one.

A tow-truck driver for more than 30 years, he built his one-man, one truck operation into a thriving business with nearly a dozen wreckers and a repair shop.

“He was always there,” said friend Max Asher, a mechanic for the city of Cape Girardeau who has periodically worked for Sperling over the last 25 years. “If that phone rang, that phone got answered.”

Friends and family are still in shock that Sperling, 58, died so suddenly.

After collapsing at Sperling’s Garage and Wrecker Service in Cape Girardeau, he was pronounced dead at Saint Francis Medical Center.

John Owen worked for Sperling for nine years and said his boss was a compassionate man and a hard worker, often arriving at 5 a.m. and staying long after others had gone home. Sperling’s reputation was “absolutely built on his dedication to the work,” Owen said.

Early Thursday morning, Owen, Asher and dozens of fellow tow truck drivers paid tribute with a procession of one- and two-ton wreckers.

Rick Wieser, a funeral director at Ford and Sons Funeral home, said flashing lights and a long line of official vehicles are typical when a firefighter or law enforcement official dies — and he has lost count of the number of funerals involving scores of motorcyclists. But tow trucks?

“This is not common,” he said. Sperling’s funeral tribute is the first he’d ever encountered with tow trucks.

Asher took the wheel of Sperling’s favorite tow truck, a 1997 Super Duty Ford, following the line of cars trailing the hearse. He led 28 more trucks, which made a half-mile long line along the route from the funeral home to services at Zion Lutheran Church in Gordonville. Police stopped traffic at key intersections; on secondary roads, dozens of cars traveling in the opposite direction moved to the shoulder, respectfully waiting to resume travel after the procession passed.

A middle-aged man stood at the end of the driveway to 5579 Highway 25, baseball cap in hand and hand over heart, watching the hearse, cars and trucks pass by in the drizzling rain.

Sperling’s brother-in-law Barry Davis, who came from Tustin, Calif., for the funeral, said he’d never seen anything like the procession or the reaction from others.

“The Tow truck business can be cutthroat at times,” he said. “But when something like this happens, they come together.”

Sheree Sperling worked by her husband’s side for their entire 33-year marriage.

She stood holding hands with the couple’s son, Jason, at the church.

“I thank my drivers and all the other drivers so much,” she said. “This was a great tribute to Gary. He was a good man.”

Such tributes have been going on for more than 20 years, according to Cheryl Mish, director of the International Towing & Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum in Chattanooga, Tenn. The museum hosts a Wall of the Fallen to recognize drivers who die in the line of duty.

John Stuppy, owner of a Ste. Genevieve, Mo., towing service, and Junior Sinn, of Junior Sinn Auto Parts in Cape Girardeau, organized the tribute. Stuppy expects Sperling’s name will be added to the Wall of the Fallen. Mish said families must fill out a nomination form at no cost.

Sinn, who has known Sperling since they were teens, said Sperling “was a very fine person.”

General Motors Corp has reached a tentative agreement to sell its medium-duty truck business to Navistar International Corp, the two companies said on Thursday. GM sells medium-duty trucks under the nameplates Kodiak, TopKick and Isuzu T-Series.

The deal, terms of which were not disclosed, is expected to be completed in 2008.

The move to sell the unit would be consistent with GM’s strategy as it tries to focus more on its core business of making cars and sport utility vehicles.

Under the deal, Navistar would purchase certain assets, intellectual property rights to manufacture GMC and Chevrolet brand vehicles in the class 4-8 gross vehicle weight range and and distribution rights for GM’s medium-duty truck unit.

It also includes purchase of the related service parts business.

For Navistar, which already produces trucks in the medium-duty market, a deal with GM would provide additional scale and permit the company to run its existing factories more efficiently.

The deal could also add as much as 50 cents a year to Navistar’s earnings per share, according to Peter Nesvold, an analyst at Bear Stearns.

The transaction could have an additional benefit: giving Navistar “an opportunity … to sell larger displacement engines into GM eventually,” Nesvold said.

He added that would help Navistar, which supplies pickup truck engines to Ford Motor Co but is embroiled in a bitter dispute with the automaker, to “plan for ‘life after Ford’ should that relationship sour further.”

When the deal is concluded, production of the vehicles would move from GM’s plant in Flint, Michigan, to a Navistar facility to be named, the two companies said.

GM said it would retain ownership of its Flint plant and continue to build other products at the facility.

GM will also continue its medium-duty truck relationship with Isuzu Motors Ltd to market W- Series trucks through GM’s medium-duty dealer network.

GM’s previous asset sales include Allison Transmission to buyout firms Carlyle Group and Onex Corp., 51 percent of its finance unit to a group led by Cerberus Capital Management LP, and stakes in Suzuki Motor Corp , Isuzu Motors Ltd and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd.

General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM) has tentatively agreed to sell its medium-duty truck business to a unit of truck maker Navistar International Corp., the companies announced Thursday. No terms were disclosed, however, and GM said more work must be done on details of the deal.

The sale, which involves a division that builds vehicles used as tow trucks, for example, would be part of GM’s plan to focus on building and selling passenger cars and pickup trucks. For Navistar, which has faced years of accounting problems, the agreement would advance its strategy to build scale and cut costs.

International Truck and Engine Corp., the principal operating subsidiary of Warrenville, Ill.-based Navistar, (NYSE:NAV) and GM said they have entered into a non-binding memorandum of understanding about a sale.

Financial details of the deal, which is expected to close next year, weren’t being released. GM spokesman Rob Minton said the agreement could lead to a sale, but more work needs to be done on specifics.

Troy Clarke, president of GM North America, said Navistar’s experience in building International brand commercial trucks makes the company an “excellent choice” to buy GM’s medium-duty business.

“We intend to work closely with Navistar to make this transition seamless to our dealers and customers,” Clarke said in a statement.

Daniel C. Ustian, Navistar’s chairman, president and CEO, said: “We … will utilize the scale to build on the success of both the International and GM product lines and their respective distribution networks.”

Navistar said in October it was in talks to buy Detroit-based GM’s medium-duty truck business.

Under the deal, Navistar would purchase certain assets, intellectual property and rights to manufacture medium-duty GMC and Chevrolet brand trucks, such as dump trucks, tow trucks and utility trucks.

It also includes purchase of the related service parts business, the companies said. Navistar would sell the vehicles and parts for service through GM’s dealer network in the U.S. and Canada.

GM doesn’t break out financial details for its medium-duty truck business, but Minton said it typically sells about 30,000 to 40,000 vehicles a year in the U.S. and Canada. Under the agreement, Navistar would add the GMC TopKick and Chevrolet Kodiak truck brands to its lineup.

When a deal is concluded, TopKick and Kodiak production would move from a GM plant in Flint, Mich., to a Navistar plant. GM would keep the Flint plant and continue to build other products at the facility.

Minton said he couldn’t say what might be built at the Flint plant because GM doesn’t discuss product plans.

The agreement is subject to negotiation of a definitive purchase agreement, regulatory clearance and board approval. Following a closing, transition of the business could take several months to conclude.

GM shares fell 18 cents to $26.48 in morning trading Thursday.

Earlier this month, Navistar restated its earnings for fiscal 2005, reporting a $139 million profit in what it called a milestone toward catching up on long-overdue required filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Navistar also formally filed results for 2003 and 2004, showing a combined $377 million loss. Until October, the company had not reported financial results for more than two years because of accounting problems.

Navistar was delisted by the New York Stock Exchange in February.

Residents of this manufactured housing community will get to see Brevard County’s planned new automated trash-collection system in action next week, as a truck’s mechanical claw lifts 64- and 96-gallon wheeled carts from the curbside, dumps out the contents and sets the carts back down.

But some are already criticizing the plan as garbage.

“A lot of the people here only put out one little bag of garbage a week,” Pat Clark, incoming vice president of the Barefoot Bay Homeowners’ association, said Thursday. “Why should they put that in a big bin and drag it down the (driveway)? And if they (filled it) for two weeks, just think of the ants, bugs and maggots.”

The system requires the wheeled garbage bins, said George Geletko, spokesman for the contractor, Waste Management Inc. And he said the company will provide the bins free of charge, without passing the costs to the consumer.

Waste Management is negotiating a new contract for 100,000 homes in unincorporated areas of Brevard, such as Barefoot Bay and Micco.

And the contract’s proposed rate increase, from $9.17 to $11.65 a month, has angered residents, Clark said.

But Geletko said that increase only looks bad because the existing county contract, which expires in October 2008, didn’t account for skyrocketing fuel prices.

Waste Management also serves northern Indian River County, where county Utilities Director Erik Olson said going to automation would be costly and only worth it if the county required residents to subscribe to garbage collection. Brevard does, but in Indian River it’s still voluntary.

Traditionally, workers hop off the truck, pick up curbside cans, dump them into the rear of the garbage truck and hop back on for the next house. This month, the County Commission endorsed automation, asking Waste Management to report back at a Jan. 31 final public hearing with budget estimates based on including and excluding recycling as an automated service.

“Currently Waste Management has a hard time keeping people, so the level of service is way down,” County Commissioner Helen Volts said Thursday. “Nobody wants to work on the back of those trucks, especially in the summer time.”

She said the new system also will expand the kinds of material the county can recycle, boosting an annual recycling revenue of $150,000 to $400,000.

As for the homeowner, she said, the new bins are better balanced and easier to maneuver than having to carry traditional 30-gallon cans.

Clark said she needed to see that in practice. So on Saturday, Clark and her neighbors on Barefoot Bay’s Egret Circle will get the new wheeled carts so they can fill them and see the truck at work Wednesday.

Geletko said Waste Management has already set up pilot programs for about 20,000 customers, before the county inks the final deal, in Cape Canaveral, Satellite Beach, Indialantic, Indian Harbor Beach and Melbourne Beach.

FOUR Dump trucks, two owned by the Municipality of Consolacion, have been confiscated by the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (Penro) for alleged illegal hauling of limestone.

The Penro monitoring team and the Cebu Provincial Police Office (CPPO) conducted a checkpoint last Tuesday in Conso-lacion.

The four trucks were flagged down at Danglag, Consolacion and were seized after the driver failed to present delivery receipts for the hauling activity, which is a violation of the Province’s quarrying ordinance.

Glenn Baricuatro, Capitol consultant on environment, said that either for commercial or government project, extraction of minerals like limestone has to have the necessary permits and the hauling must be covered by delivery receipts.

The team learned that the limestone was extracted from the waste of a road opening project in Barangay Danglag.

Based on its records, Penro has not issued any waste disposal permit to any person or government entity for the hauling activity.

The four vehicles loaded with six to 10 cubic meters of limestone are now in the custody of the CPPO.

Baricuatro said they do not know where the limestone was to be delivered but they have received reports that quarrying in Consolacion has been going on for quite sometime already.

Capitol will investigate the matter further.

More timely garbage collection is expected next year when the Department of Environmental Health brings on stream 10 new Dump trucks with a combined $2 million price tag.

According to the department’s acting director, Winston Sweeting, the trucks’ arrival will enhance the garbage collection system in New Providence.

It comes in the wake of the government’s decision to put a hold on a plan that called for outside companies to assist the department with garbage collection.

Once the new Dump trucks arrive the entire garbage collection systems is expected to be revamped, according to Mr. Sweeting.

The 10 to 12 trucks that are currently being utilized reportedly cost the department $250,000 each.

Mr. Sweeting advised members of the public not to place items such as car tyres or batteries in the garbage as they tend to damage the trucks, causing the department to fall behind in its work.

“We want to be able to tell the public what days they can expect their garbage to be collected. We ask the public to bear with us and if the garbage is not collected they can call the solid waste division. We will do our best to collect the garbage,” he said.

Mr. Sweeting said the department is a week behind in certain areas.

“The inner city is well taken care of. It was just the outer sections of the island affected. Sections of Yamacraw and Pinewood Gardens are the areas we are behind on. We are working with the trucks we have. They are currently breaking down [and] we are coping with what we have,” he said.

Mr. Sweeting said he is aware of the increase in demand for the department’s services during the Christmas season.

The department’s workers are prepared to work over time so that there wouldn’t be an overflow of garbage, he indicated.

Mr. Sweeting said old Christmas trees ought to be taken to the dumping facilities.

He advised members of the public to discard the trees themselves because that is not the responsibility of the department.

The acting director noted that another garbage collection problem stems from persons not having the correct garbage collection bins to enable the department to carry out its duties a lot more quickly.

“The householder has a responsibility to provide suitable receptacles that are properly covered,” he said.

Mr. Sweeting asked members of the public to stop using oil bins because they are hazardous to sanitation workers.

“We had incidents where sanitation workers were cut…when it rains water settles to the bottom of the bins and it is very hard for the sanitation personnel to move the bins,” he explained.

“The garbage collection trucks only collect household waste, which comes from the preparation of food. Residents need to make the necessary arrangements for us to assist them with removing larger items.”

He said persons should not dump garbage on anyone’s property, in the bush or at the sports centre.

Santa and Mrs. Claus made a special delivery in Allentown today. Employees of Mack Truck World Headquarters have been collecting toys for children in need. Today a dump truck was filled with all the gifts.

All the donations were then dropped off at the Volunteers of America Children’s Center to be handed out to the kids later this afternoon.

Mack Dump Trucks for sale at AutomotiveBestBuys.com

The city is getting two new dump trucks, complete with a plow and a salt spreader for each vehicle.

City Council members approved the purchase of $238,939.36 Monday. The units replace two 1999 Chevrolet dump trucks and were purchased through the State of Missouri bid process, which essentially saves municipalities money.

The total bid price for each unit, complete with plows and salt spreader accessories, is $119,469.68.

Hargis said existing vehicles are getting to the point where they are getting too expensive to keep repairing.

“We rebuilt the transmission in one of them for $16,000,” City Engineer Steve Hargis said. “It’s still in use, but they could go any time.”

The vehicles are used throughout the year — in summer for street resurfacing and in the winter for snow removal and salt spreading.

The old vehicles, which are valued at about $15,000 each, were not acceptable for trade-in. International Truck Corp., which has offices in Springfield, Kansas City, St. Joseph and Joplin, was the successful bidder.

City Council members also approved the purchase of a new wheel loader for the purchase price of $103,137, less the trade-in of $43,500 for a total of $59,637.

Like the Dump trucks, the wheel loader was purchased through the State of Missouri bid process.

“If I were a contractor, I couldn’t buy it for this,” Hargis said. “It’d be 25 percent more.”

City Council members approved the awarding of the bid to Crown Power and Equipment, which has offices in Columbia and Jefferson City.

After bids were awarded, City Finance Director Steffanie D. Rogers sought approval from City Council members for financing for both the dump trucks and the wheel loader.

Rogers said both purchases — the trucks and the wheel loader — were budget items for a five-year payment schedule of $51,000 and $21,000, respectively. City Council members approved the financing bid to Commerce Bank with a rate of 3.53 percent of $51,159.18 annually for the trucks and $12,768.85 for the wheel loader.

Hargis concluded the evening by asking City Council members to approve the purchase of a Bobcat with a trailer. Once again, Hargis sought the bid through the statewide bid process for a total of $33,290. Hargis’ 2007-’08 budget appropriated $32,000 for this purchase.