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| George K. Kimura |
After his time in service, George returned to Reedley and along with his brother Frank, established Kimura Trucking Company and began farming numerous ranches in the Reedley and Orange Cove areas. It was fitting that George and his brother would start a trucking business because George loved trucks and one of his dreams in life was to have his own business. George ran Kimura Trucking successfully for over 50 years and his was extremely proud that his son continued the family business, which is still in operation today.
George married his loving wife Setsuko (Naito) in 1952 and together they had four children. George and Sets started their life together in Reedley and in 1954 they moved to their ranch in Orange Cove and spent ten great years there before returning to Reedley, the town they have called home ever since.
As the children grew, George enjoyed taking annual trips to Las Vegas and Disneyland with his family. He was always supportive of his children in all their endeavors. In his later years, George along with Sets, enjoyed visiting with friends and family by traveling to reunions of the 422nd Unit and Poston III camp. He always treasured family gatherings and reunions, and especially enjoyed his weekly trips "up-the-hill".
He also loved spending time with all of his grandchildren and great grandchildren. George was a loving husband, devoted father, doting grandpa, and adoring great grandfather.
George is preceded in death by his parents, Arakichi and Yoshiye Kuroki Kimura ; his grandson, Blake Egoian; and brother, Frank Shigeaki Kimura. He is survived by his wife, Setsuko (Naito) Kimura; children Karen (Gary) Sakata and daughters Melanie & Lindsay, Kathy (Richard) Enns and daughters Lisa (Mark) Fowler and Laura (Matt) Giordano; Keven (Nannette) Kimura and Chris and his fiancé Linda, Justin (Eilis), Bryana and Todd; Carol (Jim) Egoian and Tisha (Jess) Foddrill and Whitney & Cole; great-grandchildren, Liberty, Brayden, McKenzie, Elijah & Addison; sisters-in-law, Helen Kimura, Michi Ikeda, Amy E. Naito, Sumiye Okita, Namie Naito, Nana Naito, and Amy Naito; brother-in-law, Shig Naito.
Source: Published in the Fresno Bee on February 9, 2011
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By Tom Willey of Tom Willey Farms
I used to entice my young children into accompanying me on each day’s harvest haul to Kimura Trucking’s Reedley dock with promised treats from the “Indian” or “Piggy” store. I became acquainted with George Kimura, consummate fresh produce transporter hereabouts, some 30 years back, when this greenhorn vegetable farmer struggled to establish relationships with top commission merchants in Los Angeles and Bay Area terminal markets. Those agents would invariably admonish me: “Send it on Kimura”, which translated to their receiving my product near midnight in a properly refrigerated van for a super fresh same-day-sale.
Few, if any, haulers could match Kimura’s on time service, skillfully managing his small signature fleet of classic, long-nosed green and white conventionals, the secret was George’s “tight ship” operation. Woe to any of his several dozen, mostly family-scale stonefruit growers or the odd vegetable farmer whose flatbed of produce pulled up late to Kimura’s east Reedley staging dock. George would cast a disapproving gaze that withered delinquents with shame. But he and wife Sets also kept a candy jar on the desk for farmers’ sweet-toothed offspring.
George was a native local, born in 1926 to freshly immigrated parents from Fukuoka, Japan. The family had settled in Reedley where his folks labored on others’ farms before purchasing their own. The Kimuras were, of course, spirited away to a wartime relocation camp in Poston, Arizona. A similar fate befell all west coast Japanese-Americans. Young George was drafted when coming of age and served with the famously valiant 442nd Infantry Regiment in WWII’s European Theatre.
Though a neighbor’s kind attention preserved and protected the Kimura ranch throughout war years, George invested in a truck soon after his 1946 return and thereafter focused sole attention on hauling produce for numerous moderate scale orchardists in his district yet packing under family labels. We often forget, lounging at bountiful tables, farmers and laborers whose sweat produced our food, but rarely if ever might we honor the service of those transporting it. George’s son, Kevin, operates Kimura’s green-and-white fleet yet today, inheriting the ethic, “Under commit and over achieve” from his exacting father. As we laid George to rest from Reedley’s Buddhist Church, a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but gratefully reflect on an immense part this good man’s service has played in the success of my farm.
Source: http://www.eco-farm.org/blogs/farmer/under_commit_and_over_achieve/
