Perry ? There were a lot of people and big trucks at the funeral. And Norman Hamm would have liked it that way.

About 500 people gathered Thursday at the Perry-Lecompton High School auditorium to pay tribute to the construction company founder who died Monday at age 92.

“Norman liked good prime rib, quarter horses, rodeo, Lincoln Mark IVs and coyote hunting,” said Ron Nadvornik, whose recollections about Hamm and his accomplishments constituted about half of the funeral service for the beloved millionaire good ol’ boy.

After the service, more than 65 Hamm Cos. trucks — large and small, all with the company’s distinctive turquoise markings — formed a corridor for family members to drive through on their way to burial at Underwood Cemetery in Williamstown.

“That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” said Hamm’s daughter Marita Hermann, of Bradenton, Fla. “My father would have been so proud.”

Humble start

Born poor, Hamm quit Oskaloosa High School in his junior year to help his ailing father on the family farm.

Borrowing $250 in 1940, he bought a steel-wheeled tractor and started a wheat-harvesting business that in the following 30 years grew to include rock quarries, waste management, and building and road construction.

Through the years, dozens of employees went to work for Hamm as teenagers, staying with him until their retirement.

Greg Miller, Lecompton, a truck driver for Hamm Cos., doffs his hat as the funeral procession for company founder Norman Hamm passes on U.S. Highway 24 east of Lecompton. Hamm employees lined the highway Thursday with company vehicles as family members drove to the burial at Underwood Cemetery in Williamstown.

“People don’t stay where they aren’t appreciated,” Nadvornik said.

Nadvornik, 56, of Lawrence, is senior engineer at Hamm Cos. He worked alongside Hamm 20 years before Hamm, in 1989, sold the companies — half to family members, half to his employees.

Roscoe Keesling joined Hamm’s wheat-harvesting crew when he was 14.

“I worked for him 39 years,” Keesling said. “He did so much for me — I don’t think a father could do as much for a son as Norman did for me. He was the finest person I’ve ever known.”

‘Best of them all’

¢ Obituary¢ Hamm Cos. founder knew ‘right is right’

Chatting with friends outside the high school, Keesling, 65, recalled the days when he and Hamm went to rodeos together.

“Norman was the kind of guy who’d give you a hundred (dollar bill) and not think anything about it. But when we’d rope against each other — I’d only do it for quarters — it’d darn near kill him to lose a quarter,” Keesling said, laughing.

Oscar Brandenburgh worked for Hamm 18 years.

“I’m from Topeka, and I worked for every contractor there was in Topeka,” he said. “Norman was the best of them all — and I’ll tell you why: He let you do your work. He’d tell you what needed to be done, and he’d let you do it.”

Roland Ross, 86, of Perry, chuckled when he heard Brandenburgh’s assessment.

“Norman and I went down to Oklahoma once,” Ross recalled. “We’d gotten a rock-crushing job down there. I was down there for a year; I think he checked up on me once.”

Ross joined Hamm’s wheat-harvesting crew in 1940. He retired from Hamm Cos. in 1988.

“There’ll never be another one like him,” he said.

Lester Mowder, 59, of Perry, went to work for Hamm Cos. in 1963. A heavy equipment operator, he’s still there.

“The thing I’ll never forget is when Norman had his open house after he built his house there in Alvamar,” Mowder said. “He put his arm around my shoulder and told everybody there that ‘This guy built this house for me several times over’ — he was telling people that if it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t have been able to do what he did.

“With Norman, it didn’t matter how much he did for others; he always appreciated what you did for him,” Mowder said. “Always.”