Dennis King

One of my favorite memories of Luck Stone is when I was office manager at Powhatan and Mr. Luck would come by. Mr. Luck always took time, even with his busy schedule, to make sure that he spoke to everybody in the office. I developed a really special relationship with Mr. Luck because he would talk about business as always, but he would always ask me about my family, and he would get personal. He was genuine and we could have good conversations. Over the years after Charlie was dating Lisa and he married Lisa, and the Petty family had come into Luck Stone, when Mr. Luck would come by, our conversations always led to racing and I let him know that I was a Richard Petty fan and if he happened to see Richard to let him know that his number one fan from Powhatan said hello and Mr. Luck would laugh, said he would do it. That's just the kind of guy that Mr. Luck was. He was genuine and he made you feel like more than just a number. You were somebody special.

I really had a special relationship with Mr. Luck and I really appreciated it. We even went as far, when Richard Petty had his fan appreciation tour, he had come by the office and I was telling him the same thing, "Tell Richard Petty his number one fan said hello." Well, that weekend when Mr. Luck was at the race, he went out of his way and got me a Richard Petty fan appreciation tour t-shirt and had it signed at dinner that night by Richard Petty. He brought it back, and he got back to Richmond a few days later and dropped it off at the scale house. And I could really kick myself because I was on vacation that day, but he gave it to the office, plant manager to give to me. When I got back to work the following day, Bob Blair, the plant manager, looked at me and handed me a brown paper bag and said, "I don't know what you know, but Charles Luck said, "Give you this."

My face lit up when I saw that t-shirt and then when I noticed that it was signed by Richard Petty, I've got that t-shirt to this day and it's a very special place and every time I see it I think of Mr. Luck, and I really appreciated Mr. Luck. He was just one fine man.