Staying married 50 years is a feat, and those who make it deserve accolades. L.G. Painter has been in a relationship for 50 years, showing his love of the Cullowhee community as a volunteer firefighter.
Painter, 76, went to work at Western Carolina University’s electrical department in 1972 and as a volunteer firefighter at age 25. The building housed a fire truck.
“It wasn’t really a fire station, it was more a shop,”he said. “We had one little fire truck that the university had bought in 1971.”
The truck had to be moved out of the shop every working day to make room for operations, he said.
In 1974, WCU built on Long Branch a three-bay station that also housed the carpentry, plumbing and other shops.
“Then we went to the Department of Transportation and got a dump truck chassis,” he said.