Brainerd Road Won't Be The Same Without Bobby And Lee Ann Parker

A 91-year run for the Wilhoit/Parker family in the service station business - including one of the few remaining self-service operations in the state - ends this week in Brainerd.

Lee Ann Parker told customers the time had come for her retirement - a year after losing husband Bobby to a battle with cancer. Her last day at the station will be Wednesday.

"This station has been our life. Our customers were more like family. We rejoiced with them in their successes and cried with them in their sorrows," she said.

Bobby's grandfather, Harry Wilhoit, started out in the filling station business in 1934 downtown and on McCallie Avenue. Ms. Parker said Bobby started hanging around the station as a kid and went to work there when he was 13 - heading straight to the station from school.

Bobby and Lee Ann were fellow students at Dalewood Middle School. She notes, "He was a year ahead of me. I knew his brother and I knew who he was when I passed him in the hall."

The two finally got together on a blind date in 1980. They were married two years later.

Lee Ann said her parents were delighted with the match - especially her father. "He was 50 when I was born and he would tell me that I didn't know how to take care of a car. He said when I was driving he would not be around to help me. He said I needed to find somebody who could."

Bobby had taken over the Wilhoit operation, and he moved to the current location at 3660 Brainerd Road.

Ms. Parker said she joined right in the operation, working in the office while Bobby dealt directly with the customers' service needs.

She said, "At first we kept it open Monday-Sunday, and we would try to take off on Sundays. In the early 90s, we dropped the Sundays."

But one thing they have never considered dropping is the full-service gas pump. Ms. Parker said, "Many of our customers really liked getting their gas pumped, their windshields washed and a check under the hood."

Lee Ann said Bobby Parker looked forward to every day at the station, which was initially Brainerd Gulf and is now Parker's Auto Service. She said, as he was battling cancer, he told her he didn't want to miss a day at the station.

Ms. Parker said, "He didn't either. We worked on Friday, April 19, of last year and went out with friends that evening. Bobby went into the hospital that next morning and died on Monday."

She noted, "I didn't want to miss a day either. I loved it as much as he did."

Prior to learning of his cancer, she said, "Bobby had been perfectly healthy. Then we got the devastating news."

She said since his loss that so many customers have told her stories of how Bobby didn't charge them for gas or a service job at a time they were down on their luck.

Ms. Parker said, "Our longtime staff has meant the world to me since we lost Bobby. They've had my back every step of the way, and I'm so grateful for them."

She said the Brainerd Road station "is the only job master tech Billy McGarvey has ever had (since 1984). Larry McNabb handles gasoline sales. Three of our relatives at the station include Wayne Brogan, general manager; master tech Mike Wilhoit and service tech Thomas Parker."

Ms. Parker said she could not comment on the future of the beloved station, but she said, "Hopefully, in the near future it will remain pretty much as it is now."