Bobby Ammons,  Bowling Green Kentucky

His journey to

  Click on Pictures                                                          BA's  FULL SERVICE

When I left Gideon, Missouri in 1959, I never dreamed that one day I would have my own filling station. It took me 49 years to achieve that

 I left home in 1959, walking with $35.00 in my pocket, my clothes in a brown paper sack. I bought a bus ticket to Indianapolis with $12.00 of the money. When I arrived in Indiana,  I  immediately got a job on a farm making $1.00 per hour.

At that time gas was 19.9 cents per gallon in Missouri and I was making .65 per hour driving a tractor. Back then they were without a cab and no air conditioning.  I can remember I ate a lot of dust.

After 30 days in Indianapolis, I got a call from Florida wanting to know if I wanted to come down to Ft Lauderdale and take a job paying $2.25 per hour driving a truck.  That was on a Thursday and  I started driving the truck on Monday. I drove it for three years until the contract ran out... Unemployed again!

I loaded up and left Ft Lauderdale and returned to Malden, Missouri. There I met the Love of my life,  Betty Layne. I worked at Swift Chicken Company in Dexter, Missouri making $1.65 per hour. I couldn't make it on that so in 1968 I took off to St Louis Missouri.

 My cousin, Wayman Baker, got me an application at the General Motors plant in St Louis. I went to work there in 1968 making $3.37 per hour. Then in 1981 I transferred to the Corvette  plant in Bowling Green Kentucky.

  I worked at Corvette until 1993 when I retired.  Then to break up the boredom of retirement, I worked at a Swifty Gas station making $350.00 per week.  That is where the idea of building a gas station came from. I first built a miniature version of Swifty Gas, then I decided to build a full size version.

 I couldn't come up with enough money to leave Bowling Green, so I got involved in a couple of  hobbies. One was keeping my truck in show and driving condition, along with my truck I bought a 1927 Essex car and restored it.  From those two hobbies I began building my own gas station.

Here is the new Love of my life, my Granddaughter, Abbie. Here she is helping me around the station.

  My nephew, Dallas Beasley stops by to look over my station after it's completion.

Here is the front door to my station. You can pick up a cool sodie before you come in.

Here is my 1927 Essex getting some of that "Full Service" attention from BA's Gas station.

  Inside my station I display many of the model cars and trucks I have built over the years.

Every station needs a management center "Desk", so I put one in mine to.

  Here are more models I have built on display.

When customers stop by I like to offer them some entertainment with my TV and nurishment with my microwave.

AND NOW... THE GRAND OPENING!  6 SEP 2008!

A visit from another nostalgia buff

A little more of BA's history

Born, Bobby Ray Ammons, to Maxine Thompson Ammons and Virgil "Didd" Ammons in 1942.  Maxine gave Bobby a sister, Betty, in 1945. Unfortunately, it didn't work out with Maxine and Ray.  Then in 1946, Maxine met and married Lonnie Beasley. They moved just outside of Gideon Missouri where Bobby got his "education", inside of and outside of the school house and cotton patch. Lonnie was pretty hard on Bobby, but he tried to raise him like his own son.  In 1949 Bobby was given a half-brother, Lonnie Beasley Jr., then in 1951 a half sister, Ruby Jean Beasley. The house was getting a little crowded by this time and when it was "cotton picking time" everyone had to pitch in and help provide for school clothes for each school year. As soon as Bobby could save enough money, he bought his first car, a black 1951 Chevrolet. During the 1950's it was fashionable for the teenagers to name their cars and have it painted on the side.  His was named "Midnight Special". Another one was named, "Little Queenie".  Bobby could not have been more proud of that car, if he had given birth to it. Even though Bobby was not born a Beasley, he was brought into the family as one immediately. He was considered "Bobby Beasley" as long as I can remember. He had many cousins that loved him like a brother. Here are a few of them.   His step-dad. Lonnie Beasley, like Lonnie's brother, P.O. Beasley, were hard working farmers. They never owned any land, but they had a tremendous work ethic that Lonnie passed on to Bobby. Even in his retirement, Bobby can't "not work". He is busy all of the time. His gas station project is proof of that.  Bobby has two step-sons, Tommy and Johnny Sampson. After Bobby and Betty divorced, Johnny remained close to Bobby and still does today. Bobby has tried to instill the same work ethic in Johnny that Lonnie did in him.  Bobby has a son, Shawn, that lives near him in Bowling Green. Shawn and Ashley provided him with a grandson, "Bobby". There can be no better sign of respect than to name another human being after you. Shawn honored his dad with a namesake in his son Bobby.  Bobby also has a daughter, Amanda who lives in North Carolina.

Then we have the newest Love of his life, Abbie. She lives next door to him and I think she is the documented "manager" of BA's Full Service Station...     and his heart.

Here is a little history you might find interesting about the Texaco sign.

Texaco Logo Design

Texaco is an American oil retail brand that provides quality gasoline and is a leader in the market in performance. Texaco is known today as one of the most iconic brands around the globe. The company's original five-pointed star logo design was created in 1903. The first trademarked logo, designed in 1909, featured a red star (a reference to the lone star of Texas), leading to the advertising jingles "You can trust your car to the man who wears the star", and a green T which all over the world, means superior quality. The Star Symbol and Texaco Logotype are Texaco's major retail brand identifiers. The trademarked logo design was created by Romeo Miglietta who based his design on the colors that embellished the Italian flag. The Texaco logo was updated in 1913 and a 42-inch double-faced sign was introduced. In 1963, with the launching of the company's first corporate identification system, the circle was replaced by a hexagon. The company introduced the streamlined star symbol in 1981 along with the new System 2000 stations. Texaco updated its corporate identity in 2000, after deciding that the star symbol no longer needed the wording Texaco below it.

I hope you have enjoyed this little tour through my Full service gas station, and please come back again soon!