Whayne Supply last week celebrated 100 years of operation in Kentucky.

The Louisville-based large equipment company has been in Bowling Green since 1954, and a few of its early employees attended a celebration here that included lunch, ice cream and drinks.

Rowena Adcox of Bowling Green worked for Whayne Supply for 30 years before retiring in 1995. She worked at the Bowling Green location beginning in 1961 for 13 years before moving to Louisville. She and her husband, Kenneth, returned to Bowling Green after retirement. The two were among about 100 people at the celebration.

Mickey Howard has been a customer of the company for more than a dozen years. He was looking at a new telehandler, a multi-purpose vehicle. Howard has an agriculture application service for which Whayne supplies his equipment.

“I’ve got a piece of equipment in the shop,” he said.

Company president and owner Monty Boyd said Whayne’s founder, Roy C. Whayne Sr., had great foresight in starting the company.

“We want to build on a century of commitment that he started,” Boyd said. “We recognize the key to our success. We represent the best quality products and keep customers satisfied. We are one of the oldest and largest (Caterpillar) dealers in the world.”

Boyd said the company has learned to adapt. “We have prudently managed through all economic situations,” he said.

Whayne Supply has 1,300 employees in 16 locations in Kentucky and Tennessee.

Bowling Green Mayor Bruce Wilkerson thanked the company for its commitment to Bowling Green and the relatively new location it has built off Louisville Road.

Wilkerson said he wanted to assure the company that city leaders are still working on a different way to get in and out of the business. “I am sorry that there is a railroad track between here and the road,” he said.

The turnoff to an access road to reach Whayne Supply is not within sight of the building.