F.F.A.M.

History’s Corner – September 2014

A TRIBUTE TO OLD FRIENDS AND WELCOME TO THE NEW GENERATION

Since the last newsletter was published, two of my old and dear friends have answered their last alarm. This seems to be a trend in a person’s life when you are reaching nearly three quarters of a century old. Many of the “fire service warriors” who built fire districts and other fire service organizations in our fine state are reaching or have passed retirement age. Others like the two featured in this article have gone on to their final reward. The beauty of this story about two of our fire service leaders is that they have in both cases provided another generation to follow in their footsteps.

CHIEF ARTHUR (ART) SMITH

Chief Arthur (ART) Smith
Chief Arthur (ART) Smith

In the 1960’s and 70’s it was fairly common for the Fire Training program at the University of Missouri to conduct regional fire schools around the state. These programs were normally done on weekends and done at the request of an individual fire department or regional organization. It was at one of these weekend schools in Lewistown that I worked with Art Smith. He was actually the driving force in that area of the state for many training sessions and was a great supporter of the Fire Fighters Association of Missouri. This regional school was unique because of Lewistown’s distance from two adjoining states. Art was sure we could draw firefighters from those states. This school then became the first of several joint ventures with the University of Illinois and Iowa State Fire Training programs to conduct what became known as the “Tri-State Fire School”. At the time two classmates of mine from Oklahoma State were working for those two agencies; Roger Sweet at Iowa State and Jerry Montigold at Illinois, so these schools were “old home week” for us.

Art Smith was always thinking of ways of improving the fire service. His “tri-state” concept was just one example of the input that made him a leader in the FFAM, the State Fair Fire Department and the local departments he held so dear to his heart. One of the many reasons I admired Art was his ability to accomplish many tasks and never be concerned about taking any of the credit for the accomplishment. The best example of his humility was his leadership in the development of the firefighters memorial at Kingdom City. He was not the least bit concerned who got the credit, he just got it done!

CHIEF FRANK FRANDSEN

Chief Frank Frandsen
Chief Frank Frandsen

We move to another area of the state and a person who had a huge impact on the fire departments around the Lake of the Ozarks. Chief Frank Frandsen was the “go to guy” in the lake area for decades for anything fire service related. He was born in Ballwin; served in the Navy during the Korean War and moved to the lake are in the 1960’s.

My first experiences with Frank took place in the mid sixties and again as a result of planning for a program called the Lake Ozark Regional Fire School. The school was planned for the fall, after Labor Day and the slowdown of what locals call “the season”. I remember it well because it rained like crazy the entire weekend and really screwed up lots of outside evolutions that we had planned. One of the local departments, I think Osage Beach, had acquired a well used ladder truck from some department in the east and wanted to do lots of training with it, in and around their new resort, Tan-Tar-A.

The lake area at the time had several good fire service organizations all suffering from the same problem. This was before the formation of fire districts in rural Missouri and I can remember working in the area where lots of used equipment was housed in some strange places like service stations and individuals garages because funding was not available to do anything else.
Frank and many others in the area were the foundation of the now modern and well-equipped organizations presently serving the lake area. He was the chief of the Lake Ozark Fire Department in 1976 when it became a fire district. We had lots of conversations and meetings about that conversion to a district because I had gone through the same exercise in Boone County when the voters in that county voted to form a Fire District on July 11, 1970. Frank was a community leader and I am proud to have been able to call him my friend.

NOW ON TO NEW GENERATIONS

U.S. Air Force Firefighter Dylan Westhoff, Fifth Generation in the Westhoff Family of Firefighters
U.S. Air Force Firefighter Dylan Westhoff, Fifth Generation in the Westhoff Family of Firefighters

As I mentioned, my two friends in this article did a fine job in leaving family members who are present leaders in the fire service. This “like father, like son” tradition is alive and well in the fire service in our state and might be worthy for an article of its own on some future date. When the memorial in Kingdom City was built we purchased a section with an inscription “The Westhoff Family, four generations of Missouri Fire Service” My grandfather was the first chief of the O’Fallon Volunteer Fire Company in the early 1900’s and my dad served as fire chief in the 50’s. Our son Doug is a chief officer of the Boone County Fire District and in charge of Missouri Task Force One. Daughter Donna has a Fire Protection and Safety Degree from Oklahoma State University and has her own business in Dallas and we are now moving to the fifth generation.

We were proud to attend the graduation recently of our grandson Dylan Westhoff from the U.S. Air Force Fire School at Goodfellow A.F.B., Texas. He has been assigned to Travis A.F.B., California and reports to duty this next Monday. That makes five generations of nuts in our family that choose to run into burning buildings when everyone else is running out! God speed, Dylan. I am sure you will make us all proud.