According to Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores, the founder of a convenience store chain known for its red and yellow heart logo, “Clean Places, Friendly Faces” motto, tractor trailer maintenance and in-store showers has died.
Oklahoma City — Love’s Travel Stops and Country Stores is the founder of a truck stop chain known for its red and yellow heart logo, “Clean Places, Friendly Faces” motto, and in-store showers said to have died.
The company announced on its website that Tom Love died Tuesday in Oklahoma City. The cause of death has not been revealed.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our beloved husband, father and grandfather,” the family said in a statement. We continue his legacy of living a life of integrity and faith.”
Love and his wife Judy founded Love’s Travel Stop and Country Store in 1964 as Musket Corporation, according to a statement. They leased a closed gas station in Watonga, about 50 miles northwest of Oklahoma City, for $5,000.
Love’s president Shane Wharton said, “In many ways, he was just an ordinary man who built an extraordinary business with his wife Judy and the family he loved dearly.
Valued at $9.7 billion in 2022, according to Forbes, Love’s remains a family business. It currently operates approximately 600 travel stops in 42 states, with more than 39,000 employees, primarily along interstate highways.
Love established the concept of combining a grocery store and convenience store with a gas station and opened the first grocery and convenience store with a self-service gas station in 1972 on the Oklahoma Panhandle in Guymon, Oklahoma. bottom.
Love’s opened its first travel stop on Interstate 40 in Amarillo, Texas in 1981 to cater to professional truck drivers and others seeking convenience and efficiency when traveling across the country. .
Love’s has expanded these services to include truck maintenance, tractor-trailer rig on-road assistance, and in-store showers.
Above an interstate store sign, an NBA Oklahoma City Thunder jersey, and a NASCAR Cup Series car, the company’s logo, a multi-colored, multi-layered heart with a red heart, moves toward the viewer. It looks like
His love is passed on to his wife, four children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
A funeral service has not been announced.
