Fred Lynch retired in 2018 after capturing images for the Southeast Missourian since 1975, in that time moving from black-and-white to color, from film to digital and to video. The blog title is a nod to an earlier era of news photography and the 4x5 Speed Graphic: It's more important to be there for the shot than to worry about technical details.

Perfect service to mystery motorist

Posted Monday, August 13, 2012, at 12:00 AM

Aug. 13, 1958 Southeast Missourian

Paul Armsby, owner of Paul's 66 Service Station at 340 S. Sprigg St., has received a $50 award from the Phillips Petroleum Co., for giving perfect driveway service to a Phillips "mystery motorist." In the picture he is shown at the left receiving the award from D.V. Shaner, district salesman. Others in the picture at the left are station attendants, Don Hency and Richard Gerlach. (G.D. Fronabarger photo)

The car is a 1958 AMC Rambler Super Cross Country station wagon.

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Oct. 29, 1959 Southeast Missourian

Paul Armsby, who has been a consistent winner of his supplier’s “mystery motorist” award, has won the $50 prize again. He and his employe, Richard Gerlach, will split the award for service they provided when the mystery motorist drove up to Mr. Armsby’s service station at Sprigg-Morgan Oak. The prize goes only to those operators who give certain standards of service to motorists.

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Here's a photo from about 10 years later showing the era when you actually got service from service stations.

http://www.capecentralhigh.com/cape-photos/when-service-stations-delivered-servi...

-- Posted by Ken1 on Mon, Aug 13, 2012, at 8:47 AM

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