“I knew I shouldn’t have come to this meeting,” said our son-in-law Rick Welch about the Gunlock town meeting in which he was “thrown under the bus by my cousin” to become the volunteer fire chief. His station will serve the Washington County communities of Gunlock, Central, Veyo and Brookside under the auspices of the Northwest Fire District.
Gunlock has recently finished construction on a nice, new station and through a government grant, purchased a shiny, new fire truck … but the community has no other trained personnel among the approximate 110 residents and no other firefighting equipment. Luckily, they have not had any fires in the past several years. Rick’s main responsibility will be to recruit and train his Bowler relatives, some who have owned land from Gunlock to Bigelow Ranch for generations, and others who reside in and around the town named for early pioneer Jacob Hamblin’s brother, William “Gunlock” Hamblin. Gunlock, settled in 1857, is also the site of the annual Gunlock rodeo, held every July 4thsince 1945 and with revenue from the event helping to support community facilities – maybe even the all new fire department?
Rick and Stacy purchased property in Gunlock – about 20 miles from downtown St. George in the northwest corner of the county – about 6 months ago after his retirement from the SGFD after 21 years. As a retiree, he was “ordered” not to accept a position with another fire department for a year, so the residents of Gunlock waited before recruiting him to take on this assignment – since he is the only Gunlock landowner with firefighting experience.
PS: Rick says he made Stacy promise she would “keep her mouth shut” during the town meeting but, even so, he had to elbow or knee her periodically to remind her of her promise! Now, as Mrs. Chief, she plans to start an auxiliary for residents who would like to help make Rick’s job a little easier while he builds his program; and she is working to develop a Facebook presence for this fledgling fire department.
Another PS: We love this guy … and have assured him his new assignment will probably make it onto my Top Ten list for 2019!!!
1 comment:
Love this!!!
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