Mississippi Highway Patrolman Jason Ginn listens to an eyewitness account this morning near the scene of a fatal wreck in the eastbound lane of Interstate 20 near Flowers. (Melanie Duncan ThortisThe Vicksburg Post)

[7/22/03]A truck driver who continued to work after retirement because he “didn’t know anything about sitting around the house” died on Interstate 20 early this morning on his way home from work.

Robert James “R.J.” Smith, 71, 2007 Ford St., was driving to Vicksburg in his car and was just east of Flowers at about 1:20 a.m., said Larry Chisley, Warren County deputy coroner.

Smith’s Ford sedan left the westbound lane of the interstate, crossed the median and hit an 18-wheeler in the eastbound lanes. The truck was driven by Daniel Gilmore, 48, 2165 Airport Road, Raymond, who was taken to River Region Medical Center, where he was in fair and stable condition, a hospital spokesman said.

Smith had been in Jackson where he ended his shift as a driver for Vicksburg-based Waring Oil Company, which has a terminal there. He’d been with the company nearly 40 years and retired in the late 1990s.

“He had worked since he was 9,” Robert James Smith Jr. said this morning. “He went back to work after he retired because he said, I don’t know anything about sitting around the house.'”

Howard Waring, an owner of the company, called Smith a great employee.

“I wish we had everybody like that,” Waring said. “He was good, dependable, just a great guy.”

Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace indicated Smith may have become ill or fallen asleep before his car went across the median. “Witnesses stated to investigators on the scene that Smith was driving in the westbound lanes, began to veer to the left, into the eastbound lane and directly into the path of an eastbound tanker truck carrying diesel,” Pace said. He said the wreck was reported to 911 at 1:23. An autopsy was scheduled at Mississippi Mortuary Services in Pearl.

Eastbound traffic was slowed for nearly eight hours as workers removed debris from the highway, said Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Highway Patrol. The fatality was the fifth traffic-related death this year in the Vicksburg area along Interstate 20.

This morning, those gathering at Smith’s home recalled memories of a happy-go-lucky man who never met a stranger.

“It hasn’t hit yet,” said Smith’s son, Louis Smith. “I still can’t believe it.”

Virginia Smith is married to Smith’s eldest son, Robert James Smith Jr.

“He was always positive,” she said of the father of seven children. “He loved to live life to the fullest.”

Robert James Smith Jr. said the family will unite to get through the difficult times ahead.

“We will come together as a group and take care of everything because that’s what he would have wanted,” he said.

Dillon Chisley Funeral Home has charge of arrangements.