The fact is, the Chevy Astro van I now use as my magazine delivery vehicle was purchased new in 1989 and has seen only one other automotive business in the state of Nevada with the exception of a paint shop. I visited the paint shop for a bid on a paint job. And I didn't get that (you may have noticed).

That's my testimony, and I'm sticking to it.

Always looking for a way not to work on my cars, my search for Auto Specialist started a few years earlier than Tony and Sharon showed up. I brought my young family to Boulder City from Las Vegas in 1972, but alas the Meleos had yet to arrive.

It was just a few years later when Meleo and company showed up in town and it certainly was not by accident.

Auto Specialists didn't just happen into Tony and Sharon's life and neither did Boulder City as a place to live. Their life together appears to have been a planned destiny. Tony and Sharon met at age 13, started dating at 15, and were married at 19 (sounds like a series of lucky numbers).

"I started working on cars when I was about 12 years old," the still young looking and energetic former Californian says. "I started going to my dad's shop on summer vacations and on weekends, and continued through high school."

Fast forwarding, we find the Meleo couple having fun, having kids, and growing up in his father's business, which was called (drum role), Auto Specialists.

But in time, they became tired of the hustle and bustle of California, the smog and the big city life, and in 1974 took a trip across the country looking for a place to live.

They looked high and they looked low. They looked in Prescott, but the nights were too cold. They chose Boulder City, because as we all know, Boulder City is just right.

"The first people we met here," says Meleo, was Bob Blair (Real Estate) and Larry and Georgia McCollum." (Auto Repair).

After settling in, they bought Larry's Auto Tech, changed the name to Auto Specialists, and remained at that location for the next five years until their lease was up and the rent doubled. The Meleos were prepared.

Although they had doubled the business at their location on the highway, they decided to move to the property they had purchased at 705 Juniper Way.

Their new facility, which was built in 1979 and received the Boulder City Chamber of Commerce Beautification Award in 1980 after the structure was completed, provides full service automotive repairs as well as towing service and a well stocked parts house.