There aren’t a lot of people who can retire after a 36-year career and have a near-unblemished record of achievement, but Donnie Ruf is an exception.

The Athens native recently retired from United Parcel Service after a long career behind the wheel. Earlier this year, he was inducted into UPS’ Circle of Honor, which honors drivers who have not had an avoidable accident in 25 years or longer.

Ruf’s last official day on the job was Aug. 31. For 25 years, he served the community of New Market. Over the course of that time, the residents became like family to him.

Kitty Weston, the retired postmaster of the New Market post office, said Ruf loved his customers and they loved him in return.

“It is seldom you meet someone that had the type of customer service qualities that Donnie Ruf had,” she said. “People who serve others can sometimes slip through the cracks of not being recognized as they should be.”

Change of plans

Ruf began working for UPS at Christmastime in 1980, but that wasn’t his chosen career. He graduated from Auburn University in hopes of becoming a teacher and started his practice teaching at Athens High School.

At the same time, Ruf was also living and working on the family farm with his wife and two children. He eventually became a full-time farmer and tried it for four years.

“We had one good year, two mediocre years and one year was a disaster,” he said with a laugh. “I decided to find a job.”

He was sitting on a bush hog one day talking to his brother Leon when he noticed a small brown truck making a delivery to a house down the road. When he asked who it was, Leon told Donnie it was a UPS truck.

“He said, ‘They make good money,’” Ruf said.

That was all he needed to hear, so he decided he would try to land a job with the company. He managed to get hired on in Huntsville as temporary holiday help in 1980, but was terminated after the holidays were over.

He then took a job with the Limestone Farmers Cooperative but received a call back to work from UPS after being gone just three months. He went to his boss at the time, J.W. Hudson, who told him he should probably answer opportunity’s knock.

“He told me I needed to work for UPS and that I would probably make more money than he ever would,” Ruf said.

The start of a career

The trajectory of Ruf’s career could almost be measured by the explosion of growth in the Huntsville area.

“I delivered in Hampton Cove when there was only one house,” he said.

It was over the course of his 25 years in the New Market area Ruf came into his own. It afforded him the chance to know the residents there almost too well.

He recalled having a conversation one day with a “distressed older gentleman” who wanted to talk to Ruf about his erectile dysfunction problems.

“He went into a very detailed explanation and told me about what he found at the library and all this,” Ruf said. “After about 45 minutes of standing there, I said, ‘I’ve got to go. I understand it’s very stressful, but I’ll give you my number if you want to call me and I’ll listen.’ He looked at me and asked, ‘What do you think I ought to do?’ I wanted to tell him, ‘Maybe you ought to just give up.’”

He recalled having another way-too-personal conversation with a female resident who wanted to talk to Ruf about her various health issues and previous surgeries.

“I was trying to be compassionate and she said, ‘My uterus weighs 14 pounds,’” he said. “I told her, ‘I don’t know what one’s supposed to weigh, but that sounds like a big ‘un to me.’”

Only mishap

Ruf’s driving career was nearly perfect, but it wasn’t without one mishap. Several years ago, at Christmastime, UPS put him in a rental truck. He didn’t feel safe driving the truck, but he did so anyway.

He was making a delivery on Upper Hurricane Road in New Market, which has a bridge running across a creek. There was some water coming up over the bridge, but Ruf crossed it without incident and continued on his way. Coming back, however, Ruf couldn’t get across.

“My back tires came up and went down in the water,” he said. “The water wasn’t that deep, but it had something to do with the way the bridge was made.”

Post career

When asked what he plans to do now, Ruf explained he still lived on the family farm. He said his brother Leon took care of the farm while he worked for UPS, but Donnie’s pretty sure Leon saved some work for him. Otherwise, he plans to spend time with his daughters, Bonnie Ruf and Katie Ruf Blair, and his granddaughters, Lola Marie Blair and Julia Elizabeth Blair.

When asked what bonded him to his customers and vice versa, Ruf said he simply always tried to go the extra mile for folks.

“You’re supposed to treat people like you want to be treated, and I like to be treated pretty well,” he said. “I would do things that people wouldn’t ordinarily do. I loved my customers. … I truly did.”