HOMETOWN LOVE

ers and to the local community whenever they can. Sometimes, it’s a small gesture like signing up to drive through the holidays. Because they don’t have kids, they enjoy giving other drivers the chance to spend the holidays at home. “If we decide to work, that gives the driver who has children the opportunity to go home,” Plummer says. “It may just be one truck, but it’s one truck where the driver has kids who need them at home.” working parents, other parents have helped out in the past by providing meals before games. When the team needed someone new to sponsor those meals, Plummer and her husband raised their hands.

BY MARY ELLEN CHILES

Emily Plummer has worked for Prime for 23 years and was named Prime’s Highway Diamond of the Year in 2022. By all accounts, she’s had a successful career driving, but for Plummer, the real testament of her success is her ability to give back to her hometown. Plummer drives with her husband, Gary, and the two like to give back to other driv-

Home is an important place for Plummer. She was raised in a “little bitty” town called Luxora, Arkansas, that’s 45 miles north of Memphis. It’s so small that kids from several towns attend one school called Rivercrest High School, in nearby Wilson. “It’s a poor community, and they don’t have much,” Plummer says.

When Plummer started earning a good living at Prime, she wanted to help kids back home, and she has a soft spot for the football team. “I love our school’s football program,” she says. “The coaches have gone to this school; they’ve graduated from this school.”

Since many kids on the football team aren’t able to go home between school and games because of lack of transportation and

First, they adopted a program where they provide snack bags for the players. Then when COVID hit, all meals needed to be prepackaged, but the only option was fast food, and it was too expensive for many families. “I got with the lady in the PTO and said, ‘I want to know who can go pick up the orders, and can send you the money,’” Plummer says.

Plummer paid for snack packs and meals for four years, and then other people in the community started chipping in to help with costs. “A woman sent me a video with one id who had never had hic fil Plummer says. “I knew had to continue to do this because there were things didn’t have growing up, and people provided that for me. This is my way of giving back.”

Plummer likes to go back to attend games when she can, and she stays in touch with players after graduation because they usually add her on Facebook.

The nickname she’s been affectionately given is Aunt Emily, and she loves it.