"If you're well enough to get out of bed, you're well enough to work."
At 66-years-old, Terry "Tooter" Shipley owns and operates his fathers historic full service gas station in Bowling Green, Ky., the last of its kind in the region. Shipley got the name "Tooter" from his father James Shipley who opened the service center in 1954. From a young age Tooter was surrounded by a culture of hard work and determination thanks to his late father who worked at the shop until his passing in 2001. From then on, Tooter assumed responsibility of the business working predominantly on his own and with the help of a few scattered part-time student employees. Many of those students refer to him as a fatherly figure and continue visiting years later.
Mechanic Terry “Tooter” Shipley sets a car jack on a section of frame before servicing customer and long time friend Barry Crutcher’s 1964 Ford Falcon at Shipley’s full service gas station in Bowling Green, Ky. on April 13, 2024. Shipley's hands and body are decorated with fifty years of hard labor ranging from wrenching on cars to training race horses during his early 20s. He spends his 60’s as the only employee at his service station working 6 days and 60 hours per week. He jokes that his marriage is so successful because he and his wife, a professional accountant, keep themselves so busy.
Terry “Tooter” Shipley, 66, takes breaks in-between wrenching and cleaning to peer out of his service shop window facing East 13th Avenue in downtown Bowling Green, Ky. on April 15, 2024. Tooters father James Shipley opened Shipley’s full service gas station in 1954 and had Tooter working by the time he was 11. Tooter has spent almost all of his adult life running Shipley’s, besides a brief stint at a horse farm in Florida much to his father’s disapproval.
Jonathon Adams (left) puts 5 dollars of gas in his early 1920s Ford Model T which he drives to work and around town regularly while chatting with his former employer and mentor Terry “Tooter” Shipley (right) outside of Shipley’s service center in downtown Bowling Green, Ky on April 15, 2024. “That man has been like a father to me,” Adams said of his relationship with Tooter over the years. Tooter took on the role of a fatherly figure with several of his student employees, many still visit the service center years later to check in on Tooter and help around the shop.
Terry “Tooter” Shipley keeps a collection of 50-year-old highway maps featuring an image of his late father James Shipley who opened Shipley’s full service gas station that Tooter now operates in downtown Bowling Green, Ky on April 15, 2024. Tooter recalls being awakened by his father with a familiar saying, “My god you get your ass out of bed and go to work— if you’re well enough to get out of bed you’re well enough to work.” Tooter says his father instilled a strong work ethic in him from a young age, and those lessons have followed him ever since.
