The holidays have come and gone, but it was almost a festive atmosphere at Monday's Heath City Council meeting.
Family, friends and fellow firemen were on hand to celebrate Cory Leindecker, Brendyn Ratcliff and Kyle O'Brien being sworn in as new Heath firefighters/paramedics by Mayor Mark Johns. They report for duty on Jan. 14.
Heath Fire Chief Warren McCord was a happy man Monday.
"It's been a long time coming," he said. "We've been running short staffed for a while, basically at a minimum. Our guys have worked a lot of overtime. Now, we'll have more people on the trucks, and be able to staff an additional truck."
"It will be great to have an extra set of hands on each stop," Johns said.
Leindecker played football, basketball and baseball at Lakewood and attended C-TEC his junior and senior years. His late father was fire chief of Buckeye Lake for many years.