All in the family: Myson's Tires grows and changes, but family business retains values, hard work and Tire Man on Broad Street

Men often salute military memorials, and the full-scale Tuskegee Airmen's P-51 Mustang Red Tail at Sumter Veterans Park is no exclusion. Those men are usually not made of tire.

An original Tire Man welcomed motorists to Sumter for years in front of Myson's Tires on Broad Street and Carter Road. It was an idea born from the mind of Larry Tickel, who co-owned the automotive repair, tire and wheel center store with Keith Logan. A friend who could weld helped create the "15-foot-tall dude made of stacked tires with upraised arms and a chrome wheel rim for a face," according to the description on Roadside America.

While that Tire Man, assembled with "old, raggedy tires," according to the younger Tickel, has disappeared from the original Broad Street location, co-owner Matthew Tickel is helping to pump new life into the business he was forced to work at when he was 13 that he now runs at 3890 Broad St.

Logan opened the first Myson's in 1969 on U.S. 521 South before moving to Guignard Drive in 1996. That store, which Logan had sole ownership of after taking over the business from his father in 1988, according to The Sumter Item archives, closed in May.

The Broad Street location opened as a partnership between Logan and Tickel's father. Tickel said he and his dad have helped build it to what it is today and that the agreement is for Logan to retire by the start of next year.

"My main goal is to let people know we're still here," Tickel said, "still we keep going. I have no plans on stopping."

People overlook tires, Tickel said, but "we're not flying cars yet."

His dad was a pilot for Bank Air and was looking for jobs when that career ended, when he met Logan and asked for an opportunity to work at the beginnings of the Guignard store. He strived to do something better than any other worker, and his motivation and commitment to his work led Logan to partner with Larry Tickel to reopen a Broad Street location.

"I was 13 at the time, still in school, and I worked there throughout the school and in summertime. (My dad) called me one summer and told me to get up and that Grandma was coming to get me to come work there," Tickel said.

While Tickel's teenage sentiment about working janitorial services at a tire store while his friends hung out and enjoyed summer break mirrored what many young teenagers would feel, he said he looks back now with appreciation. He did whatever Dad told him to, sweeping, cleaning, learning. Maybe begrudgingly at the time, 39-year-old Tickel credits those formative years for the development of his work ethic and business values.

Eventually, his friends even started working at Myson's, and "they learned a lot, too."

Now, Tickel has exchanged brooms for payroll, waiting to be told what to do to handling the family business' accounting, customer relations and anything else needed from an owner/operator.

He brings knowledge he learned from seven years he spent in Columbia working at Love Chevrolet. While Myson's mainly services and sells tires, alignment and brakes, Tickel gained experience in an array of vehicle services.

"There was a time when I realized how hard I was working and putting it toward something that wasn't really necessarily going to be mine. A lot of people do that, and that's what a lot of people are able to do, but I had an opportunity like this with a business that could be mine down the road," Tickel said. "I was about 26, 27 when I made up my mind to go back and put my effort into Myson's Tires and better that company."

His dad has told him had he not returned home to rejoin the family business, he probably would have "sold everything or shut down."

Tickel turned 30 and "really started digging in and getting serious." He learned what he needed to become a manager of a store that today has eight employees outside of his family.

"School isn't for everybody. It isn't for me. I can sit there and read books, and in my mind it just drips off, but I'm hands-on. I learn very quickly and efficiently when I'm doing it," he said. "If I ever did need to get another job, I have a lot of experience in a lot of things."

At the heart of Myson's Tires is a family business that wants to continue to be part of the community. It took well over a year to resurrect Tire Man in front of Myson's current Broad Street store. Tickel didn't want to use leftover tires.

Now, Tire Man V2.0, as Tickel calls him, can be seen not with both arms extended out, but with his right arm in the formation of a salute. Across the street, the aircraft flown by the first Black Americans allowed to do so for the U.S. Armed Forces sits suspended in midair, a monument to honor the group of African American pilots, navigators, bombardiers, supply maintenance, support staff and instructors, four of whom were from Sumter County, who fought in World War II and played a pivotal role in desegregating the U.S. military, as written detailed in The Sumter Item.

With Tire Man reborn and refurbished, another step in the local tire shop's story continues. Two men built and grew Myson's. Two men passed their business down to their sons. When Tickel thinks about what his dad might have had to do had he not returned to Sumter, he also thinks of his son, whom Tickel and his wife welcomed early this year.

Maybe motorists will one day see Tire Man V2.0 holding his non-saluting hand with Tire Boy.