9/27/2006

Hulburd adamant: ‘I’m not going to go away’

By Dolores E. Pike

Bob Hulburd and CRASH; they go together like salt and pepper. It is hard to separate the man from the cause. Bob Hulburd's name has become synonymous with CRASH (County Residents Action for Safer Highways), the project to dualize Route 113.

"They had been talking about dualizing Route 113 for many years and even in my teenage years they did dualize the part between Snow Hill and Pocomoke. I remember that because I was in high school in Snow Hill and would drive that road to games in Pocomoke. Often times there was construction going on," said Mr. Hulburd.

As a local who grew up in Public Landing, he affectionately remembers it as a town with one traffic light that today still only has one traffic light.

After graduating from Western Maryland College, now called McDaniel College, with a degree in art education, he taught for four years at Stephen Decatur High School (SDHS) where he also coached football and wrestling. He left teaching because of financial considerations and went into the insurance business with Nationwide, starting from scratch 24 years ago.

Next April he and his wife, Linda Jo, will celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. They live in Ocean Pines with their two children, William, a senior at SDHS, and Chelsea, who is currently spending her freshman year at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. Mr. Hulburd is vice president of the Worcester County School Board, a member of the first school board to be elected in the county, and running unopposed for a second term of four years.

According to Mr. Hulburd the catalyst for the project that came to be known as CRASH finally took off in 1994 due to the public's overwhelming concern for safety. Seventy-seven people were killed on Route 113 in the 20 year period between 1977 and 1997. This number of highway fatalities was three times the state average for similar roads. It was not necessarily the large number of accidents so much as it was the large number of fatalities and the severity of injuries for those who managed to survive.

The merger of the man and the cause came together tragically for Bob when his cousin Lee Figgs, 28 years old, was killed on Route 113 in July, 1994. Lee was coming home from Ocean City, where he managed a Dumser's, and was hit by a bobtail tractor that was speeding past another tractor trailer. Lee was killed instantly when the bobtail came into his lane, hitting his car head on and causing it to catch on fire.

The following month Jim Barrett, local businessman, and Louise Ash, who worked for the library, organized the first meeting. Since Ms Ash also worked for a local newspaper she saw that the notice of the meeting was well publicized. Concerned citizens were encouraged to attend and work towards finding solutions to curtail accidents occurring on both Route 113 and Route 90. Coincidentally, that same year in April, another well-known local, Jerry Todd, had been killed in a head-on collision on Route 90.

"I saw that notice in the paper and said 'I have to go' and got some other people to go. I had also met the week before that (first CRASH) meeting with Maryland Senator Lowell Stoltzfus, (who) I had never really met before. I was telling him we needed to do something. So basically when Lee died I decided I was going to commit (to the cause)," said Mr. Hulburd.

The Snow Hill library was the scene of the initial meeting of the grassroots group determined to lobby elected officials about the need for action. Mr. Hulburd was elected, and has remained, the chairman of organization, which Ms. Ash named CRASH.

"I called another meeting in September. I invited Donnie Drewer (State Highway Administration district engineer) and elected officials and basically the word we got at that time was there was no money, there were wetlands issues, and it's been talked about for years but probably not going to happen in our lifetime.

"To sum it up in a nutshell, the group wasn't willing to take no for an answer. I said publicly at that meeting, 'I'm not going to go away,'" said Mr. Hulburd.

At that second meeting in September CRASH found out that the state has its Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP) meeting with the county commissioners in October. In between the September and October meetings Mr. Hulburd visited elected officials, including Congressman Wayne T. Gilchrest. The word was out that people wanted action. They packed the room at the CTP meeting and got the attention of the state highway administrator. The group's initial accomplishment was the money to put a guard rail on Route 90.

The year that CRASH began, 1994, was an election year and according to Mr. Hulburd, gubernatorial candidate Parris Glendenning made a campaign promise to put Route 113 in the planning stage. "The political process and our process was timely," said Mr. Hulburd.

"We have a problem here that is never going to be fixed until 113 is dualized. I am hoping I live long enough to see it. Traveling on 113 is my life," he concluded.

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