At 100 years old, Bill Covington of the Sulphur / Lake Charles, Louisiana area still spends his days in his workshop tracing, cutting, sanding, and gluing little wooden cars — more than 100 this year alone — for Houston River Baptist Church and Operation Christmas Child, the shoebox ministry that ships toys and necessities to children overseas, KPLC reported (published Oct. 2, 2026).
A World War II Navy veteran, Covington earned a Purple Heart after friendly fire tore through his ship and injured him and another sailor. He taught Sunday school until he was 98. He’s losing his eyesight now, but he’s not quitting. His secret, he says: “Just keep working. Don’t quit.”
Wife Earlene — they’ve been together 14 years — says he’s done over 1,000 cars over the years (“we’ve done 100 for three years, and then we’ve done 60 a bunch”). His first wife, Ruth, who lived with him 55 years before she died, told him to build the workshop he’d always wanted. Somewhere overseas, a child will open a shoebox and find a handmade wooden car — and never know the 100-year-old locomotive still rolling in Sulphur.
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