Some call him the UPS man or the U.P.S. man or Mr. Brown. He prefers to be called Dane. These days, Dane Orbaugh is called a member of the prestigious Circle of Honor.

UPS driver Orbaugh recently received accolades from the United Parcel Service and was inducted into the company's Circle of Honor for serving 25 years accident-free.

While UPS has a reputation of having safe drivers - its 102,000 drivers worldwide are among the safest on the roads, logging more than 2 billion miles and less than one accident per million miles driven per year - it's not easy to become a member of the Circle of Honor. Consider this: There are about 5,000 members of the Circle of Honor in the United States.

"It was quite an honor," Orbaugh said. "There's only one other guy who's active in Kokomo who's a Circle of Honor member."

Becoming a member of the Circle of Honor was no accident, no pun intended.

"It's something I was really going for," Orbaugh said. "It makes you feel good. You are a part of something."

High-ranking UPS officials were on hand during the celebration. "There were people there from UPS and the company magazine," Orbaugh said. "What meant a lot to me was my family was there and all of the UPS drivers and we had some retirees that showed up - and they gave me the day off, too."

Orbaugh's not sure just how many miles he's logged over the years. "Jay Talbert and I tried to figure that out one day," the Circle of Honor member said. "It was more than 1 million. What we figured was 170 miles per day for 25 years."

UPS has 37 routes based out of Kokomo, and Orbaugh's route is southern Tipton County and northern Hamilton County. But years ago he had the southern Kokomo route and before that routes in Logansport and Frankfort.

"From Kokomo, we go as far north as Royal Center and as far south as just right at the edge of Cicero," Orbaugh said. "We go as far west as Frankfort and as far east as near Marion."

When Orbaugh graduated from high school, he started working at Gerber Pottery. "After working there two weeks, I got a call from UPS. I said, 'Well, boys, I think I'm going to UPS instead of making toilets.' " That was in 1979. He's glad he made that choice because he's enjoyed working at UPS and they closed the pottery. Orbaugh hasn't always been a driver. He started by washing the trucks and worked his way up to driver.

He's had some interesting experiences as a UPS driver, the most memorable of which was the day he was driving down a narrow county road, where there was no place to turn around, and in his path was a skunk with his head caught in a Coke cup. Think about the UPS vehicles. The doors are usually open. Even if they're closed, Orbaugh said, he and his cargo would not be immune to skunk's stinky spray. He figured his customers wouldn't want their packages smelling like skunk. So he waited for the skunk to move. It took more than 10 minutes for the skunk to get free and get on its way, out of Orbaugh's path. "I radioed back and said, 'You're not going to believe this.' I got a chuckle out of that."

What Orbaugh likes most is the sense of community he has with the customers on his route. "We're friends," he said. "I remember when first started. In the wintertime, you'd be out in the middle of nowhere and think, 'What if I get stuck?' Well, now I know all the farmers out here. They have my number and I have theirs. I can call and ask for help. They can call me. There's a sense of community. It makes you feel kind of good. If you do the people right, they'll do you right. It's nice."

And his tip for staying safe on the roads: Expect the unexpected.