The year is 1972 Wesley Dean is 44 years old and has been working in the coin
op business for some 26 years working the routes of Georgia and Florida. At
the time he was working for a Rowe AMI distributor 'Peach State Music Co.' in
the capacity of head technician. His son myself Roy was working for Rowe also
but was a tech rep. Aka "field engineer" or troubleshooter. Wesley's wife
Annie Mae was a stay at home housewife.
Well then the big wheels at Peach State says if you want to keep your job you
have to move to Atlanta, Wes being the soul that he was says to them nope
don't want to go to the big city of Atlanta Ga., with all the hustle & bustle. At
the same time this was taking place in Ga. Roy was being told in New Jersey
buy the powers at be at Rowe International that he was being laid off. Well Roy
was on his way home. So He and Wes and Annie Mae decided then to start
there own business of a coin op repair service as all were known by most all of
the operators in GA,SC,FL,AL..
We called ourselves Dean's Designs because we did a lot of custom electronic
fabrication of just about anything. By the way Wes holds a patent on an
electronic scoreboard that he came up with in the 60's. The first NASCAR
scoreboard was engineered and designed and built by Wesley for the track at
Darlington SC. Also we did some label dispensers for a garment manufacture in
south Ga. There was another instance we built some track testers for the
railroad crossing signals.
Well the repair business was kicking right along with Wes and Roy doing the
repairs and Ann Mae doing the bookkeeping and keeping the check book
straight. We would get an old Juke from an operator and fix it up for home use
and sell it. Then with more and more people wanting our jukes, we had run out
of spare parts so we started buying up all the operators old boxes from there
warehouses since they did not need them anymore. Thus we started stockpiling
boxes to cannibalize. We decided then that we needed a catchy name and so
The Jukebox Junkyard was born.
Since that time we have restored hundreds of machine all makes and models.
Wesley decided to write down a sampling of his Jukebox knowledge in the form
of a book "The Jukebox and Me" ( which is still available directly from The
Jukebox Junkyard.)
In 2005 Annie Mae was diagnosed with lung cancer and was given about 6
months to live, well with Her being the fighter she was, she held on till August
2007 and passed away on Her and Wes's 60th wedding anniversary. After that
Wes slowed down working in the shop and was very alone with out his life
partner In mid 2007 he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and
passed away in Oct 2007. That left just me Roy. I am still doing All I can to
keep the The Jukebox Junkyard alive and well. The recession has slowed down
a lot but I am still here with parts supplies and a restoration or two or three.
And so that was a little history about The Jukebox Junkyard
op business for some 26 years working the routes of Georgia and Florida. At
the time he was working for a Rowe AMI distributor 'Peach State Music Co.' in
the capacity of head technician. His son myself Roy was working for Rowe also
but was a tech rep. Aka "field engineer" or troubleshooter. Wesley's wife
Annie Mae was a stay at home housewife.
Well then the big wheels at Peach State says if you want to keep your job you
have to move to Atlanta, Wes being the soul that he was says to them nope
don't want to go to the big city of Atlanta Ga., with all the hustle & bustle. At
the same time this was taking place in Ga. Roy was being told in New Jersey
buy the powers at be at Rowe International that he was being laid off. Well Roy
was on his way home. So He and Wes and Annie Mae decided then to start
there own business of a coin op repair service as all were known by most all of
the operators in GA,SC,FL,AL..
We called ourselves Dean's Designs because we did a lot of custom electronic
fabrication of just about anything. By the way Wes holds a patent on an
electronic scoreboard that he came up with in the 60's. The first NASCAR
scoreboard was engineered and designed and built by Wesley for the track at
Darlington SC. Also we did some label dispensers for a garment manufacture in
south Ga. There was another instance we built some track testers for the
railroad crossing signals.
Well the repair business was kicking right along with Wes and Roy doing the
repairs and Ann Mae doing the bookkeeping and keeping the check book
straight. We would get an old Juke from an operator and fix it up for home use
and sell it. Then with more and more people wanting our jukes, we had run out
of spare parts so we started buying up all the operators old boxes from there
warehouses since they did not need them anymore. Thus we started stockpiling
boxes to cannibalize. We decided then that we needed a catchy name and so
The Jukebox Junkyard was born.
Since that time we have restored hundreds of machine all makes and models.
Wesley decided to write down a sampling of his Jukebox knowledge in the form
of a book "The Jukebox and Me" ( which is still available directly from The
Jukebox Junkyard.)
In 2005 Annie Mae was diagnosed with lung cancer and was given about 6
months to live, well with Her being the fighter she was, she held on till August
2007 and passed away on Her and Wes's 60th wedding anniversary. After that
Wes slowed down working in the shop and was very alone with out his life
partner In mid 2007 he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and
passed away in Oct 2007. That left just me Roy. I am still doing All I can to
keep the The Jukebox Junkyard alive and well. The recession has slowed down
a lot but I am still here with parts supplies and a restoration or two or three.
And so that was a little history about The Jukebox Junkyard
| History |