Story By Cara Ellen Modisett ('96), Portrait by Housden Photography, Design by Leah Bailey ('00)

 

ROBERT AND FRANCES PLECKER DON'T BOAST THE TRADITIONAL TIES TO JMU. They were not professors or coaches. They were not graduates -- although their daughter Patti, who now lives in Virginia Beach, did graduate in 1983. The Pleckers are, however, among JMU's "loyalest fans," according to JMU Athletics Director Jeff Bourne -- the ones who are in the stands even when it's pouring down rain. Bob Plecker, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, came home to meet and marry Frances, raise three daughters and own four successful businesses over a 50-plus-year career. He is a longtime member of the Duke Club and has also served on its board. Most recently, the Pleckers gave $2 million to JMU toward the construction of the Robert and Frances Plecker Athletic Performance Center, a $9.8 million facility slated to open in fall 2004.

"Tell her what you did for your 80th birthday," Frances says to her husband.

They're sitting in his Harrisonburg office. He and his wife occupy chairs in front of his desk, flanked by a fleet of model Mack trucks and walls of awards and certificates. They're in a bright room to the left of the entrance of Truck and Equipment Corp., the company Bob founded in 1957.

"I got on the New River and I went white- water rafting with my grandkids," says Bob. "What's more, he adds, "I might do it again this year."

That statement about sums up Bob Plecker, the avid golfer, swimmer, walker, exerciser and overall sportsman. Frances, with whom he recently celebrated his 54th wedding anniversary, is more of a people person. They have strong ties to the Shenandoah Valley, where both were born and live today.

They met while he was on leave from the service. During World War II, Bob was a platoon leader in the 502nd Parachute Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. He was highly decorated, earning the Distinguished Unit Badge, the American Service Medal, the European African Middle Eastern Service Medal, the Croix de Guerre, the Bronze Star with three Oak Leaf Clusters and Paratrooper's Wings.

When he and Frances began dating, she was finishing a business degree at Bridgewater College, and Bob was serving two more years in the service with the 82nd Airborne. Then he spent a semester at the University of Virginia and another at Bridgewater College before he went to work for Dr Pepper in Staunton, where he had his first lessons in sales.

They married in 1949, and Bob went into business with her brother, who was running a live poultry buying and selling business, which they expanded to handle delivery to major markets. That enterprise led naturally to the acquisition of a Mack Truck dealership and the start of North & South Lines Inc. They sold four or five trucks the first year, he says, and "I think the best year we ever had we sold 100." Bob's career in transportation was set, a career that would eventually land him in the Michigan-based Automotive Hall of Fame.

Nearly a decade later, Bob took the plunge and launched Truck & Equipment Corp. with partners John Whitmore (Frances' brother) and Daryl Kiracofe. By 1965, Whitmore and Kiracofe had left the business for other ventures, and Bob was sole proprietor.

Partnerships followed. He and Gary Calhoun established Transport Repairs Inc., and he and Everett Showalter established Truck Thermo-King Inc. "It was a way to help start some businesses," Bob explains.

Business was different before the days of computers. "You had to count every part in the parts department by hand," Francespoints out. "It took weeks!" While she helped with inventory, Frances left the business end of things up to her husband, despite her business degree. "I don't get involved. I knew if I did, we wouldn't last very long. I knew if he said, 'Boo!' I'd take it wrong," she laughs. "This way, we get along very well."

Their formula has worked. Over the next 40 years, their business jumped from a staff of five or six to more than 200, many of whom have been with the company for decades. Plecker was named the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Chamber of Commerce's 1999 Entrepreneur of the Year and the Commonwealth of Virginia's 2003 Small Business Veteran of the Year. He is a past board member of the Farmers and Merchants Bank.

While growing the business, Plecker  has also been active in church work, the Rockingham Memorial Hospital Foundation and the Elks and Ruritan clubs. It was a natural decision to give back to the community. "Earning a lot of money isn't what's important," Bob emphasizes. "It's what you do with it after you earn it." The Pleckers have made substantial gifts to JMU as well as the area's other colleges.

But JMU has been at the top of their list for years. Frances and Bob both played basketball in high school, have both enjoyed golf and encouraged their daughters to be active in athletics. They attend all the football games and all the basketball games -- "men's and women's," Frances adds ---- and established JMU's Plecker Athletics Scholarship.

So it was no surprise that the Pleckers decided to contribute toward a new athletics center that broke ground this year. It will be named after Bob and Frances and include an academics complex named after JMU's first football coach and longtime kinesiology professor Challace McMillin.

The center is the culmination of years of planning, according to JMU Athletics Director Jeffrey Bourne. "This facility's going to serve as the front door to our athletics programs," Bourne says. The facility will look over the end zone of the stadium and will house a sports medicine department, coaches' offices, Hall of Fame, football locker room and an academics support center, including a computer lab, study and meeting rooms.

Funded by $7 million in private donations and $2.8 million in JMU funds and non-tax sources, the center will serve as a tool for recruitment, a spotlight for economic development and a statement of JMU's commitment to the partnership between athletics and academics. "I think there's a unique blend in our student athletes and their academic ability and achievement," Bourne says.

Sports lover Bob Plecker, the man who went white-water rafting at the age of 80, puts it simply. "I thought it was a worthwhile project," he says. "Athletics makes a university education possible "for a number of people who would not otherwise get a college education."

Plecker sold his business to his employees in 1997. It has been a transition -- "I just don't get that involved in the day-to-day stuff," he says, while in the next breath explaining, "I get here about 7:30 in the morning." The daily sales meetings also take place in his office.

"Since everybody thinks I'm retired," he admits, "I'm more involved in everything than before." That includes time with children and grandchildren, traveling (with Frances to places as diverse as China, Hawaii, Malaysia and Singapore for business-related trips), three days a week on the golf course, swimming, involvement in church and civic organizations -- and keeping an eye out for community endeavors that could use a helping hand.

I've enjoyed what I've been doing over these years," Bob says. "I like to stay involved, I like to stay busy. I don't know how else to describe it. Didn't let go, just kept going."