OSFA Directors

Ret. Moore FD

I can’t believe it’s been three month since my last article! Time has flown and here I am beginning to ponder what I need to write about. Well, here I go with what will or has happened around the OSFA. I was saddened to hear of the passing of one of our past employees of the Oklahoma Firefighters Museum. Eldon Forester, retired firefighter from Midwest City, was a great asset to the museum. Eldon started work at the Museum in 1998 and continued until 2005. We were a team -- Sam Oruch, Eldon and myself. We gave tours in museum, sold Redbooks and kept the museum open. Plus, we kept the newly -constructed Fallen and Living Oklahoma Firefighters Memorial operating. Eldon and I talked many times about what a great time we had and working together. When Linda Forester was Oklahoma State Firefighters Women’s Auxiliary President in 1998, he was helping her with boxes to carry or anything they needed him to do. That was just what Eldon did for anyone or any part of the OSFA Organization. What a man he was! Servant to all.

OSFA hosted its annual Statewide Oklahoma Firefighters Memorial Service on Oct. 3, and the service was broadcasted on Facebook Live. The broadcast was going well until Facebook started having glitches and finally stopped the broadcast. Facebook was down until late the next day. This was the first time I had ever seen Facebook have this happen. We have fixed the Memorial Service footage where it stopped, so if you would like to see the entire Memorial Service, it is on our Facebook web page. We can report that we have added 1800+ names to Memorial walls and three names to the Wall of Valor. The 1800+ names were engraved on five panels. The OSFA Board also approved to touch up the 220 names on the Wall of Valor. All the names on the Memorial walls, including the most current ones, can be searched on the OSFA web page. Log on to www.osfa.info and go to the bottom of the page under Museum, then click on Memorial. A new page will come up, and simply scroll down to Memorial Wall Name Search. Then you can type in a name and find which wall your firefighter is on.

All of the Committees have been picked by the Executive Board and have started to meet and work on all of the matters of the OSFA. Thanks to the members and the chairman of these committees for their dedication to the association. Remember, to serve on one of these committees you need to apply and turn the paper work in to Madelyn Roth. She will turn them into the executive board for them to pick who will serve on one of these committees.

The Volunteer Fire Service Committee is working hard to set the Fire Caucus agenda to cover needs that the volunteers have. If you’re a volunteer, remember these are free classes and education that can be close to you. We are moving them to different regions of the state so the volunteers can go when it not too far from their area. The 2022 OSFA Volunteer Caucus is set for Feb. 5 at the Kiamichi Tech Center in Atoka. If you have any fire bunkers or equipment, they will be doing a free equipment exchange. Last year, loads of items were brought in and very little was left to bring back to the museum. Until next edition, be safe. God Bless each and every one of you!

Newly engraved Memorial Walls include Panel 40 (below) and Panels 48-51 (above)

Beautification work done around the Memorial and Museum prior to the Statewide Memorial Service

OSFA & Museum Staff

Executive Director

Tippy Pierce tippy@osfa.info

Administrative Director

Sheri Nickel sherin@osfa.info

Museum Director

Gene Brown geneb@osfa.info

Museum Assistant

Quintin James quintinj@osfa.info

Museum Assistant

Bob Noll bobn@osfa.info

Museum Assistant

Brendon Pierce brendonp@osfa.info

In the state of the world today, where you can’t even get Styrofoam cups or go into restaurants because they don’t have enough employees to serve customers, the OSFA has been blessed to hire the best staff to serve you all within the last year. I want to take this opportunity to brag on the three office girls that take care of memberships, committee meetings, planning and executing events and everything necessary to run this association, as well as the newest members of the museum staff who work every day to make sure that the beautiful Memorial and museum shine bright, as they are the gem of the organization. The old adage of “Together Everyone Achieves More” is certainly demonstrated on a day-to-day basis here at the office.

Madelyn Roth joined us in October of 2020. She came to us from Louisiana where she had worked as a bartender at Texas Roadhouse for almost nine years while attending college. She was interviewed via ZOOM and started working for us just a few days after moving to Oklahoma. Madelyn hit the ground running and has helped us sort through monumental problems with membership and an out-dated data base. You should have received your 2022 membership packets in the last few weeks, and Madelyn has finetuned membership to make it as easy as possible for you to complete and return. Please take the opportunity to review the materials included in your packets. Failure to return the required information will result in you not getting your cards and decals until all information is returned. It is important for us to have accurate hire and termination dates for our members so that when it is time for your name to be engraved on the Memorial wall, there will not be a question as to whether or not you are eligible. If you have any questions, please call Madelyn and she will happily assist you.

Shelby NeSmith joined us about eight months ago. She is a volunteer firefighter with the Forest Park FD and was one of the students who successfully completed FF-1 under the SAFER grant. Her experience came from working for a doctor’s office and working as a wedding coordinator. Shelby is the staff member assigned to ORFA and is now our event coordinator. Logistical planning is almost complete for the 2022 Convention to be held in Enid and she has done a fabulous job of securing the contracts for all of the different venues that will be hosting us. She is also working hard make sure that the planning for the upcoming State Fire School is well underway.

Raegan Layne started her journey with us back in July. She was working as a waitress at the Boomerang restaurant in Perry while attending college at UCO in Edmond in pursuit of a degree in Strategic Communications, and she agreed to come work for the OSFA. She has brought a fresh outlook and array of skills to the organization that some of us older people lack in.

Raegan has been assigned to the OFCA and takes care of day-to-day office responsibilities. So far, we haven’t asked her to do anything that she has been afraid to tackle. Additionally we have added Lance Gill to the museum staff but utilize his talents in the OSFA office part of the time. Lance grew up in Broken Arrow and graduated from Oklahoma Orlando FD City University with a degree in Film Production. After a stint of working in the movie industry in Los Angeles, Lance returned to Oklahoma City to father his son Luke. Lance has a worldly outlook on different opportunities that the OSFA can potentially offer our members, has built up a unique inventory in the museum, including a collection of rare Smoky the Bear comic books, and is awesome with graphic design projects. He is in the process of launching the OSFA’s PodCast “Beyond the T-shirt” and developing a chat board that will soon be available through the website. Of course, I can’t fail to mention the other guys in the museum who keep things up and running and never hesitate to jump in whenever we need extra hands to help with large mail outs, stuffing golf bags or running to the post office or to pick up supplies. Brendon Pierce and Quintin James both are an important part of our team that we can’t do without. Brendon is the grandson to Executive Director Tippy Pierce and is the fourth generation family member to work in the museum. And Quintin has worked for the OSFA longer than any other member of the OSFA staff and recently became a career firefighter for the City of McLoud. He continues to work in the museum on his days off. To try to explain the amount of work that goes into running this association is impossible to do in a magazine article, and to have a staff with the dynamics that we have right now is almost unheard OSFA staff sending out of. These people pack a lot of dynamite into their days and are dedmembership packets icated to you all. They have cried together on bad days and laughed at each other’s mistakes and figured out as a team how to overcome both even if it requires holding hands for a prayer or a simple group hug. The next time you see one of these staff members, please pay them the respect that they deserve and give them a pat on the back or a simple thank you.