At Ron's Texaco, you can get your gas pumped for you, you can get your car fixed, and if you walk into the rear bay of the garage, you can see some really interesting art.

Ronnie Stinchfield comes from a family of mechanics, his father and grandfather both ran a garage in Phillips. Ronnie built this Texaco in 1972 when Route 4 was built to bypass the town.

The art Ronnie makes is metal sculpture, made from old farm machinery welded together. Most of the pieces aren't abstract. They are figures of birds of all sorts, people, even an iguana. All of them have a grace and a dynamism that make them very appealing. The works can be funny, dramatic or eerily delicate for sculptures made out of heavy blades and gears and horseshoes.

While it's not known how artistic Ronnie's forefathers were, it seems that Ronnie is passing on his own gift to Dana Dudley, who works at the Texaco and also creates welded figures. Dana has used his skill to win numerous prizes over the years in the Annual Scarecrow Reunion.