By Nancy Green
The Star Herald
KOSCIUSKO —
Working for one week to reconstruct a vehicle is labor intensive and a delicate process even for a master mechanic. More challenging is doing that while television cameras are just a few feet from your face.
Sallis native John "Keef" Keith is now a celebrity in his own right after helping a family in need through automotive entertainment.
Keith, a 35-year-old husband and father of three, was renowned enough to be asked to participate in the filming of a Spike TV anchor show "Search and Restore."
A 13 year veteran in collision repair and custom body work Keith is an accomplished mechanic and has been featured in national magazines.
"I started the business in '99 mostly doing collision work," said Keith. "Then moved over into custom suspension, paint and body work and fabrication."
"I've been to car shows all over the United States, been on covers and featured in different magazines."
Featured publications
Street Trucks, Mini-Trucking, Street Source and Muscle Car Performance are a few publications where his work is shown.
Keef's Rod & Custom, LLC, located on Highway 51 South in Durant near Williams-Sullivan High School, is where Keith's renderings are made into reality.
Starting off at his dad's shop located next to Durant Building Supply on South Jackson Street gained him the experience to set out on his own.
Keith was featured in Street Trucks Magazine in September of last year for his unique work.
"His dad was always restoring and painting old cars and trucks as well as building and racing dirt oval track race cars when Keef was growing up, so he didn't have much of a choice but to follow in the family footsteps," said the article.
"Keef has received many awards and magazine features and covers along the way," continued the article, "but the biggest reward is seeing his customers enjoy his creations and catching his own work cruising to shows."
Keith was contacted by the host of "Search and Restore" earlier this year to come and participate in a rebuild.
"The host of the show, Tim Strange, contacted me through e-mail, saw my work online, hit me up and asked me if I'd be interested in coming and helping build a project," said Keith. "He put the team together."
The show "Search and Restore" rebuilds a vehicle for a family in need or is suffering hardships and is featured on Spike TVs' POWERBLOCK line-up.
"It was a new experience, I got to meet a lot of new guys," said Keith, "we all clicked and got along."
"We had a lot of different backgrounds. One guy I've known for years from being a part of this industry."
"It was nice to be able to hang out for a week and work with other guys and see how they do things," Keith added.
Working on a show like “Search and Restore” wasn't quite up to Keith's expectations about how the TV world works.
"You would think there was unlimited tools on set but there wasn't," said Keith.
"We had to share and wait on one to get done with certain stuff."
"Everybody clicked and worked together,there wasn't any drama, we all went to lunch together everyday," said Keith.
Filming the show
Filming for the show took place at RTM Studios in Franklin, Tenn., for the first week in May.
"The show, you submit videos of your project, the one we did was a third generation truck," said Keith.
"A great-grandfather bought it, passed it to the dad and then dad to the son."
"The dad and the son started building it together, the dad died, so then it was kind of left. The guy didn't feel like working on it. One of his family members submitted a video to have it built for him in the dad's honor."
"The real cool part about that, it meant so much to him and all he's already passing it down to his son."
"That really hit me close to home because I'm so close to my family," said Keith. "I really loved being a part of that."
"We worked a few 16 hours days," said Keith. "We were right at schedule, we completed the bodywork a little ahead of schedule then a team came in the next week and painted the chassis and motor."
The completed vehicle wasn't ready until about four weeks later along with the shows' editing.
During certain build points, if a cameraman missed a shot of a bolt being put on, the bolt had to be removed and put back on.
"If you put something on they didn't get it on camera, you got to take it back off and do it again," said Keith.
The show is filmed a week at a time "and that week turns into 16 minutes and 40 seconds of TV. "
The reveal
The reveal for the truck was three weeks ago but Keith was unable to attend for many mechanical reasons.
"I didn't get to make it for the reveal," said Keith. "I was supposed to but we had a lot of stuff break here at the shop, the lift quit, water line busted, truck broke down, wrecked my race-car."
"I was kind of gun shy on making the trip."
What vehicle was built and restored must remain a secret until the shows airing.
"Once you get there you sign a confidentiality contract just so you can't talk about what was built. I just can't say what we built or who we built it for until it (the episode) airs."
"I will say it was an antique truck."
In the near future Keith hopes to relocate his shop out of Durant and closer to Jackson.
Operating with a relatively small staff Keith has called his Highway 51 location home for about six years. Keith soon looks to head out of Durant and on down 51, a much needed move to have better access to suppliers and an upgraded facility.
The "Search and Restore" episode featuring Keith is scheduled to air August 18 and 19.
