Eric Harlow: OSFA President’s Report Greetings Oklahoma Firefighters! Welcome to our new quarterly magazine. This is the culmination of a lot of Guthrie FD thoughts, ideas and hard work by the board and staff to come up with a more modern, attractive look for our organization. We hope you all enjoy it as much as we think you will. Our plans are to be able to offer more opportunities to feature our members and their departments, as well as offer more advertising potential for our current and potential vendors. A huge thank you to Tippy, Sheri, Penelope and staff for the work put in on what truly modernizes the look of our communications with our membership. It’s hard to believe, but our 127th annual convention is almost here! The OSFA staff, members of my fire department, as well as the other firefighters here in Logan County, are hard at work preparing what I hope to be a memorable convention here in Historic Guthrie. We are finalizing the agenda as we speak, but please read up on the convention events in this edition to ensure you’re signed up ahead of time. We plan to have fishing, shotgun shooting activities, the bar crawl and our new event, the fire apparatus parade. This is something that’s done all over the country as part of many states’ annual firefighters conventions. We think it will be a hit and are looking forward to your participation in it. This year’s convention will be held at the historic Dominion House. It was originally constructed in 1923 as the Masonic Children’s Home. The Masons have always had a strong presence here in Guthrie and this structure stands as a true testament to their involvement in the community, state and region. It remained serving in this capacity until 1978. It was closed due to changes in Dominion House in Guthrie
state laws dealing with foster care. It was sold to the current owner in 2000 and millions of dollars were spent renovating it into what it is now. Dominion House is the host to dozens of weddings and special events annually. We hope you enjoy its historic architecture and charm. Another thing on convention: If you haven’t booked your hotel rooms yet, I believe our host hotel, the Hampton Inn, is full. The overflow hotel is the Holiday Inn Express right down the street. If it happens to fill up, we have a few other fine hotels in the immediate area that should be able to accommodate you. We plan to have the Wednesday night hospitality event at the Hampton Inn, and it will be in the parking lot in a tailgate party-style fashion. By now, most of you that chose to have been vaccinated. I truly think we are on the road to getting back to normal from this Covid mess. I’m excited about this, as I hope our attendance this year at convention is back to usual numbers and hopefully exceeds them! Even though we are on the path to getting past the Covid pandemic, we still must remain vigilant in good hygiene and disinfecting procedures. If nothing else, this event reminded us how important it is in our line of work to always practice cleanliness and always disinfect our trucks and equipment. From the Executive Board side of the house, we’ve solicited applications and resumes for a permanent Executive Director to replace retired ED Steve Lumry. By the time you all read this, we will have interviewed the applicants and we hope to have a decision made soon with the announcement to be made by this year’s convention. We appreciate the interest of all those who applied, as well as those of you who have helped us in the interim with ensuring the OSFA continued to run seamlessly. Until next time, please stay safe and get ready for convention! We will see you in June!
2020-21 OSFA Executive Board PRESIDENT Eric Harlow
405-520-2893
ericharlow200@gmail.com 1ST VICE PRESIDENT Cliff Davidson 580-554-1886
davidsoncliff@yahoo.com 2ND VICE PRESIDENT Jim Ed Nimmo 918-557-8379
jimnimmo7@gmail.com 3RD VICE PRESIDENT Tony Lopez
405-739-1343
tlopez@midwestcityok.org PAST PRESIDENT Mike Kelley
405-623-4338
mkelley@local157.org
O K L A H O M A S T A T E F I R E F I G H T E R S A S S O C I A T I O N
Oklahoma FirefighterMay/June/July 2021 5
