BELLS, Tenn. (AP) -- On the campaign trail and in television ads, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Haslam boasts of his role in creating 11,000 jobs as an executive with family-owned Pilot Corp.

Yet a count by The Associated Press shows that nearly half that many jobs were added to the Knoxville-based company's payroll through mergers and acquisitions of other truck stop chains.

The 11,000 new jobs figure includes about 4,000 existing positions that were added through a 2001 joint venture with Marathon that re-branded 110 Speedway and Super America stores as Pilot Travel Centers. Another 1,400 were added when Pilot acquired 60 truck stops from Williams Co. in 2003.

Haslam said in an interview in Bells this week that the point of the advertisement was that he has experience growing business.

Haslam's opponents call the ad misleading.

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