What better way for a pair of love-struck new pumpers to start their life out together than committing to marriage at the Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo International?
Between Education Day seminars at the 2009 Expo in Louisville, Ky., on Feb. 25, Steven DuRussel popped the question to Juliette Morse. She said “Yes,’’ and the couple spent the rest of the Expo making plans for life together — both in marriage and in the pumping business.
The big moment caught Morse by surprise, as DuRussel got down on bended knee outside an entrance of the Kentucky Exposition Center and proposed.
“PRETTY NEAT”
“There was a bunch of guys out there talking about their trucks. He just decided to plop down on one knee and did it right up,’’ Morse recalls. “(The other pumpers) were clapping and smiling and asking, ‘Are you actually proposing to her?’ I thought it was pretty neat. I was there with him when he bought his truck, and we started this whole idea together.’’
The idea was starting a septic pumping business to augment DuRussel’s longtime family excavation business in the couple’s hometown of Frankenmuth, Mich. Shortly after they met in 2008, DuRussel bought a used International vacuum rig and refurbished it, and Morse was gung-ho for helping start the new business.
DuRussel will work the truck, while Morse will handle the paperwork and the marketing as they start in earnest this summer. The couple hopes the business takes off so they can consider buying one of the shiny new service rigs they saw on display at their first Pumper Expo.
“I saw a lot of trucks I’d like to buy,’’ DuRussel said of the displays he saw in Louisville. But for now, he’s got to pump with the 1986 truck with a 2,300-gallon steel tank and Masport pump. “The way the economy is, you’ve got to try to do everything you can. The truck wasn’t a big investment, and I did all of my own work on it, and it goes down the road nice now.’’
The Expo opened the couple’s eyes to a world of business possibilities, just like the flashy 1.5-karat diamond opened Morse’s eyes to a world of possibilities for their new blended family. DuRussel lost his wife to cancer a few years before he met Morse, and has two children, Christina, 13, and Brent, 9. Morse has a son, Robert, 8.
“We just hit it off from day one, and the rest is history,’’ Morse said of meeting DuRussel in January 2008. “Every day is fun with him. We get along great and have a great relationship.’’
A RETURN ENGAGEMENT
And it’s a relationship that was cemented with the couple surrounded by new friends met at the Expo. Morse vowed they’d be back in Louisville in 2010.
“We had a great time in Louisville. The city was clean, we enjoyed the nightlife, the bars were incredible,’’ Morse said of the couple’s rare getaway mixing business and pleasure. “The whole thing couldn’t have gone any better than it did.’’
DuRussel said he wanted to propose in a memorable way. Looks like it worked.
“It’s not many people who get proposed to at the Pumper show,’’ Morse says. “I think Steve always does things in a way you don’t forget. It was one of the best days of my life.’’
