Who isn’t a fan of a good love story? Whispers certainly is.
Retiring ArcBest Corp. CEO Judy McReynolds and her husband, Lance, celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in October, and they told us of the memorable way they bonded: Lance’s very bad case of poison ivy.
Lance and Judy had barely known each other at Norman (Oklahoma) High School because Lance had moved from Arkansas for his senior year. They got better acquainted during a senior trip, so Judy decided to drop by and see Lance a few days later.
Only Lance had gone fishing and gotten a terrible case of poison ivy with blisters all up his arms and hands that required steroid shots. When Judy knocked on the door, Lance assumed his dad, John, would send her away, but a father’s wisdom prevailed.
“My dad just let her in the door like, no big deal,” Lance McReynolds said. “He said, ‘Come on in. You’ve got to see him.’ It was not a good impression. I was like, ‘Oh, man, I won’t see her anymore after this.’
“I thought she was way out of my league anyway.”
He was wrong, of course. The two dated through college and married in 1985. Lance ran a business in Little Rock until Judy joined ArcBest as an executive; he became a stay-at-home dad and youth minister.
“Lance could not be more supportive of me and our company,” Judy said. “I see people who don’t have that support and it really weighs on their mind. He’s just all in on that. We’ve just lived a really neat life.”
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