The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Why a man’s billboards proclaim love for his wife
The eight electric billboards across Tulsa, Oklahoma, were both endearing and mysterious.
“Amy, I love you more!” the signs read, above a logo for the Living Water Irrigation company.
The signs became a curiosity over the weeks, as no one knew who Amy was or why someone was proclaiming love for her. People began speculating that whoever bought the billboards might be in the doghouse and looking for forgiveness from Amy.
Now, almost six weeks after he put up the billboards, Josh Wilson, 41, is laughing about all the attention surrounding the gigantic love notes to his wife, Amy Wilson, 51.
“A lot of people wondered if I was in trouble with Amy, but the truth is, I just adore her,” said Josh, who runs the Living Water Irrigation sprinkler company with his wife of three years.
Wilson took the unusual step of declaring his love for Amy to everyone in Tulsa when he learned in August that he couldn’t cancel a one-year, $1,200-a-month billboard campaign he’d taken out in January for their business that turned out to be a dud.
“I wasn’t getting the response that I expected with the ads,” he said. “But I was told that I was contractually obligated until January 1 and couldn’t get my money back.”
When Wilson’s business coach, Clay Clark, heard about his friend’s dilemma, he proposed a solution:
“Since you’re always talking about how much you love your wife, why don’t you just say something to her on the billboards?” Clark said. “You might as well turn it into a positive.” Wilson liked the idea. He called the billboard company and said he wanted to change the wording on his advertisement to “Amy, I love you more!”
“It’s a little thing that Amy and I are always saying to each other,” Wilson said. “One of us will say, ‘I love you,’ and the other one will say, ‘I love you more.’”
Amy Wilson, however, didn’t see the signs until they’d been up for a couple of weeks.
“I got busy with work and actually heard about all of this when a local news station did a story,” she said. “Everyone had been wondering, ‘Who’s Amy?’”
The two met five years ago in a country-western bar in Tulsa and quickly fell for each other.
“I knew after we danced the two-step that we’d be together from that moment on,” Josh said.
Three years later, they decided to get married.
The couple — who together have five grown children from previous marriages, along with five dogs — will celebrate their second wedding anniversary next month.