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Sam Toliver and Shelton Toliver in February purchased the former BF White Motor Co., a longtime Ford dealership in small Stanton, Texas.

The dealership was renamed Bailey Toliver Ford. Sam Toliver is dealer principal and his son, Shelton, is general manager.

The seller in the Feb. 16 transaction was Ronda Ireton, majority shareholder of the selling corporate entity, said Tom Choate, a lawyer in Abilene, Texas, who advised the buyers in the acquisition.

Ronda Ireton’s late husband, Danny Ireton, owned the Ford dealership, where he had worked his way up from service technician. Danny Ireton also was a volunteer firefighter. He was killed in a traffic accident on Aug. 4, 2021, while responding to an emergency call, according to the local CBS affiliate. He was 61, according to his obituary.

The buy-sell agreement was underway at the time of Ireton’s death and had to be rewritten after ownership passed to his widow, Toliver said.

The Toliver family also owns three Bailey Toliver RV dealerships: in Stanton, Brownfield and Victoria, Texas. The dealerships are named after Sam Toliver’s late father.

Sam Toliver also owned the former Bailey Toliver Chevrolet in Haskell, Texas, from 1997 to July 2021, when he sold it. That store is now Mitch Hall Chevrolet.

Toliver said the Ford franchise in Stanton dates back to 1929. He said annual new-vehicle volume for the dealership has been about 550 vehicles, including fleet and retail, “in a good year.”

Historically, fleet sales have accounted for most of its sales, he said. The town is surrounded by the energy industry and nearby Permian Basin, a large oil deposit, he said.

Toliver said he’s planning to move the dealership to a new site a couple of miles away, closer to the I-20 highway bypass, and adjacent to this RV dealership in Stanton.

“It’s old. I’m going to build a new one, new construction,” he said. “The old one is downtown, in a small, rural town.”

Dan Leroy with the Cotton Bledsoe Tighe & Dawson law firm, in Midland, Texas, advised the seller in the transaction.