It’s not very often that someone does a job for 50 years, let alone three people doing that same job for 50 years. But Thursday night, three special Columbiana County community members were honored.
You see them in your town — men and women who drive around in the giant red truck to help put out fires.
It’s a selfless job that Lawrence Hephner, Sr., Roland Hall, Sr. and Gary Steele have been doing for half a century in the small village of Leetonia.
“It’s something to do for the community,” Hephner said.
Both Hall and Steele started in 1970 with Hephner right before them in 1969. In the last 50 years, they’ve seen a lot of changes.
“When we first started out, all we had was a black rubber coat for a fire coat, but it changes every year,” Hall said.
“Well, you have to make sure you have all your equipment on when you go in places. When I first got on, you didn’t worry about that. You went in, put the fire out and come back out. Now, you got to put all those air packs on,” Steele said.