Founder of Love’s Travel Stops dies in Oklahoma at age 85

OKLAHOMA CITY — Love’s Journey Stops and Nation Shops says the founding father of the truck cease chain identified for its pink and yellow coronary heart emblem, “Clear Locations, Pleasant Faces” motto and in-store showers has died.

The corporate introduced on its web site that Tom Love died Tuesday in Oklahoma Metropolis. He was 85. A reason for demise was not given.

“We’re deeply saddened by the passing of our beloved husband, father and grandfather,” members of the family stated within the assertion. “Whereas the grief we really feel is unmeasurable, we have fun his life and can proceed his legacy of residing a life crammed with integrity, honesty and religion.”

Love and his spouse, Judy, based what grew to become Love’s Journey Stops and Nation Shops as Musket Company in 1964, in keeping with the assertion. They leased a closed service station for $5,000 in Watonga, about 50 miles northwest of Oklahoma Metropolis.

“In lots of respects, he was an abnormal one that constructed a rare enterprise alongside his spouse Judy and his household, who he cherished deeply,” Love’s President Shane Wharton stated within the firm assertion.

Love’s, price $9.7 billion in 2022 in keeping with Forbes, stays household owned. It now operates about 600 journey stops in 42 states with greater than 39,000 workers, largely alongside interstate highways.

Love established an idea that mixed grocery and comfort shops with gas stops, opening what the corporate stated was the primary mixture grocery-convenience retailer with a self-service gasoline station in 1972 in Guymon, Oklahoma, within the Oklahoma Panhandle.

Love’s opened its first journey cease on Interstate 40 in Amarillo, Texas, in 1981, catering to skilled truck drivers and different motorists in search of comfort and effectivity when touring throughout the nation.

Love’s has expanded these providers to incorporate truck upkeep and roadside help for tractor-trailer rigs, and showers within the shops.

The corporate emblem, a multi-colored, multi-layered coronary heart with a pink coronary heart seemingly shifting towards the viewer is featured atop the shop’s indicators alongside interstates, on the jersey’s of the NBA’s Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder and on NASCAR Cup Collection automobiles.

Love is survived by his spouse, 4 youngsters, 9 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Funeral providers weren’t introduced.