Corvallis 10-year-old Eyra Neil forgot to tell her neighbors that a fire truck would be picking her up for school on Friday.
“So they kind of came running out to see what was going on,” she said with a giggle.
The fourth-grader was this year’s winner of the annual essay contest put on by the Corvallis Fire Department to become fire chief for a day. Firefighters drove Eyra to Adams Elementary School, where her classmates greeted her enthusiastically.
She then met Mayor Biff Traber, who encouraged the 10-year-old to email or call him with “more good ideas,” Eyra said. She won the contest with an essay about a fire prevention festival she would plan as fire chief.