Reality TV Comes to the Rescue of Randy Halstead

Reality TV recently came to the rescue when Jacksonport farmer Randy Halstead bought a skid steer from a Pennsylvania seller and needed a reasonable way to get it from there to his farm.

“About a month ago I found one in Canada, but it had sold two days earlier. Usually they have a pretty good price in Canada because of the rate of exchange,” he said. “Then I found one out in Pennsylvania. I called on it. He had a hold on it until Saturday morning because someone was coming to look at it. He wanted $39,500. He called me back on Monday. They guy did want it but he couldn’t get financing. So I offered him $38,000 and he took it.”

The next step was to get it from Pennsylvania to Jacksonport.

“I had gotten a price from an outfit in West Bend. They wanted $1,800 to truck it. I thought that was on the high side,” he said.

Halstead said he was in his combine harvesting corn when he got an idea.

“I got nothing to do but watch corn go into the combine and keep my mind occupied,” he said. “Then I remembered this TV show, Shipping Wars.”

Shipping Wars is a reality TV series that aired on A&E from 2012 to this year, following truckers who transport items that others don’t want to haul.

“I was a pretty religious watcher of Shipping Wars,” Halstead said. “It just kind of stuck in my head.”

When he got home, he Googled uShip, the auction house for independent truckers that the Shipping Wars truckers use.

“It took me about three minutes to register and three minutes later I had a bid,” he said.

The first bid was also more than he wanted to pay, so Halstead checked a box marked “Price too high” and kept watching for other bids.

“And pretty soon I got a bid for $1,000. They’re going to pick it up on Tuesday and I’ll have it Wednesday.”