Every Sunday in childhood, Jeff Livengood cut firewood. A truckload a week through every season. That’s what it took to heat his family’s building at 6th and Court, just one door east of the Sunflower State of Mind Mural. It was three stories of brick to keep warm, and the wood stove was its only source of heat.
He, along with his parents and older sister, lived upstairs, while the lower two levels were used for storage for the family business, Lon’s OK Tires.
He still enjoys a wood-burning stove; however, it’s a secondary source of heat. As an adult, he hates being cold.
“I hate cold more than anybody but yet I’ll go out in the cold,” he said. “I hate mornings, so I went and became a dairy farmer and have to be milking at five every day.”
It was a career he held for a decade, then stayed on part-time after moving to work for the county. There, he was injured on the job when a bridge cable broke and he was hit on the head by a boom.
While he was in the hospital, his wife, Betty, learned she was pregnant with their eldest. Then, to lighten the mood, Livengood’s friends gave him a wig to cover his new scar.
“He wore that thing for years,” Betty said, unfazed.
One of the first times they’d met, he was pulling a different kind of prank: sitting in a flatbed john boat with fishing poles in his front yard, which was the main 15-24 intersection in Clay Center.
“If anybody hollered, ‘Did you catch anything?’ we held up a string of beer cans,” he said. With Betty adding, “They were right up there at the curb so everybody could see them. I drove by and yelled too. I know I did.”
Then, when he met his in-laws for the first time, he showed up to dinner in a tuxedo and tennis shoes.
“My Dad looked at me and said, ‘Well, I think you’ve met your match,’” she said. “He said it cause we were both pains in the butt and he knew I was mad.”
Betty said in part, it was the antics that drew her in.
“I knew if I married him, I’d never be bored,” she said. “And so far, that’s been true.” He’s wrestled geese, dropped drive shafts overnight, and left surprises in friends’ homes. In high school, he was credited with pranks he hadn’t pulled and applauded for ones he did. No one knew for sure; they reacted on reputation, and his was mischievous.
He was also known for his mechanical skills. When a friend traded a leather Harley jacket for two broken jet skis, he gave one to Jeff.
“I got it running and rode it, and I kept it running,” he said. In the meantime, he began fixing jet skis for others in his garage with Jeff’s Ski Shop in the late 80s. It was this side gig that brought a phone call in 1992; Kawasaki had just released their 750 model, and they wanted to know how fast it could go. The dealer asked if Jeff would do the honors as they clocked it via radar in February.
“They told me, ‘If it’ll do 50mph there’s a guy who’ll buy it, but I need someone to ride it in the cold.’”
He got to 50 mph and came home with a job offer. The dealer wanted Jeff to sell skis rather than fix them.
“I thought about it, but didn’t want to take a really fun hobby and turn it into work,” he said. “I enjoy the water and jet skiing too much to make it a full-time job.”
The Livengoods bought two more skis in the 90s: a stand-up model in ’92 and a two-person sit-down in ’99. They wore out three engines in each.
Jet skis were part of who they were. He practiced for hours, including early mornings. Friends came up for what they called Dawn Patrol; they’d take off at 5 am to hit the water by sunrise. Other times, they’d be out before work, then back on the skis after clocking out.
For years, he rode on New Year’s Day, so long as there was water that could be accessed through the ice.
Then Betty decided it was time for an upgrade.
“She called me and said she was going to look at a boat and did I want to go,” he said. “She got tired of sitting on the beach so she bought me a pontoon boat.”
They enjoyed it for years before upgrading to a triton, then later, a bigger one.
“She bought the first boat and the third. She said if I didn’t get it, she would. You can’t argue with a wife that buys you a boat.”
It was their love of water – and Betty’s ideas – that took them to a new career: fixing windshields. While traveling to the jet ski finals in Phoenix, the Livengoods met a friend looking to sell his glass business.
“We’re driving 21 hours straight and my wife says, ‘What do you think about buying a glass business?’” he said. “At this point in my life I’m not thinking about being a business owner; I just wanted a different job. I said, ‘I don’t know anything about glass.’”
Thinking it was an opportunity for a few years down the road, they told the friend they were interested. Three weeks later, the deal was underway.
“We thought, ‘He has this condo on the lake, he must be making money,’” Betty said. “Then we found out he didn’t make his money in glass,” she laughed. “We didn’t know anything about it or owning a business, but we bought it and hit the ground running.”
Livengood learned how to repair windshields and later, took on replacements. However, they caught backlash from loved ones for leaving for benefits over uncertainty.
“I always told Betty I’m not afraid to work,” Livengood said. “I’ll go flip hamburgers; I know how to work.”
Soon they had an employee for handling car lot repairs. Betty did paperwork through the weekends, and within six months had quit her own job to keep up.
In July of 2025, they hit 30 years in the glass business and now cover eight counties.
In that time, the job has gotten more complicated as vehicle windows started to include sensors, antennas, or internal heating. There are also more shapes and sizes.
“It used to be that one windshield might fit a vehicle for 10 years. Now there can be 21 windshields for one Jeep. You about have to see the car; there are just too many options for them.”
However, the pair said the thing they are most proud of with their business is that it allowed them to raise their family locally, and helped teach their kids. Today the pair have two grow children and seven grands, all who live locally.
“Both of our kids own their own business; they followed in our footsteps. And we get to see my grandkids grow up,” Livengood said. “It doesn’t get any better than that.”
