Stokesdale Fire Department | 2014

Stokesdale Fire Department 60 years of serving the community

Join us for an

OPEN HOUSE Sunday, May 18 • 3 pm

Stokesdale Fire Department, 8401 US Highway 158 Guest speakers, refreshments, memories & memorabilia

www.stokesdalefire.com | (336) 643-0790 Photo courtesy of Stokesdale Fire Department

Stokesdale Fire Department celebrates sixty years of community service More training, more equipment – same commitment

by PATTI STOKES

THE CHIEFS

• Leonard Pegram • Albert Pegram • Henry G. (“Boot”) Cook • V.O. (Virgil) Jones • Leon (“Foots”) Williams • Winfred (“Wimpy”) Dunlap • Randy Southard • Todd Gauldin

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Until about 60 years ago, when a building caught on fire in Stokesdale, neighbors responded as quickly as wordof-mouth could spread. With no special equipment or training in fighting fires, they used the only resources they had to fight the blazes – determination and buckets of water. All too often, they were no match for the blazes that inevitably reduced yet another home, business or tobacco barn to a heap of ashes.

Things slowly began to change in 1954, however, after a small group of about 18 men banded together to form a community fire department. They started with nothing – no money to purchase a fire engine, no fire station to store it in, and no formal training. Their occupations ranged from mechanics to electricians to tobacco farmers. Though they were small in number, they were mighty in their desire to protect homes and businesses in their community from being destroyed by fire.

Stokesdale, into Rockingham County.

Seven fire chiefs have preceded Todd Gauldin, who has served as the department’s chief since 1992. Throughout its history, scores of board members and hundreds of volunteer firefighters have served the community by volunteering

In its 60-year history, the department has expanded its first response coverage area from what initially encompassed only three square miles to 36 square miles, parts of which extend from Guilford County, where the station is located on U.S. 158 in

Photo by Laura Pullins/NWO

Leon Williams, 86, volunteered with the Stokesdale Fire Department for 28 years and was its fifth chief. When we met with Williams on April 23, he was happy to don the helmet that Chief Gauldin retrieved from storage, which dates back to the earliest days of the department.

Stokesdale Fire Department • 60 years of service to the community

with the fire department, and they have been supported by countless family members who have sacrificed time with fathers, husbands and sons so they could stop whatever they were doing when an emergency call came in.

Leon Williams, 86, joined the local fire department in 1955, a year after it was formed, and was an active volunteer until 1983. He also served as the department’s fifth chief.

In its earliest days, the department’s only source of income was from community members

“The (county) fire marshal, Bob Grant, ran the calls with us, and sometimes he would get here almost as soon as we did. He’d be out there with us at night working on those trucks if something was wrong. It was a lot of trial and error,” Richardson said.

who donated $25 a year to help it get off the ground and ensure the community had fire protection.

Williams chuckles as he describes the first fire station. It was a small, two-room building with a dirt floor that had been built to serve as a jail, and one of the rooms still had bars on the windows.

Many of the volunteers in those days grew up on a farm and were used to working on their own equipment, “so they at least had a head start,” explained Todd Gauldin, the department’s presentday fire chief. “But over the years the equipment got so complicated – it wasn’t like fixing a tractor.”

Williams remembers the day the department’s first fire engine, a 1953 GMC, was delivered.

“About 10 or 12 of us were there when the truck came in,” Williams said. With no place to store it, Rob Moseley, a fellow volunteer who owned the local Esso station, offered to let the department park the fire engine at his station.

Williams recalls about seven volunteers getting onto the truck and driving to a lake, where they pulled it down into the water and got a lesson in how to fill the tank.

The truck held about 550 gallons of water, and had a 1-inch reel – and it came with two helmets (whoever got on the engine first got the helmets).

“Back then, the department didn’t have any money,” Williams said. “We didn’t have any turnout gear, so we wore yellow raincoats, hats and short boots. That’s what you went to a house fire with.”

Bobby Richardson, 79, joined the fire department in 1960 and has served in various capacities since then, ranging from volunteer fireman to a member of the board of directors.

He remembers when the department purchased its first tanker – a 3/4-ton Ford, which held 1,000 gallons of water.

“It would wind up and run about 85 mph, but you didn’t know how to stop it.

It had mechanical brakes, which now you would say was practically like having no brakes,” Richardson said. “We did have on the first truck – strictly by luck, because no one knew what they were buying – two of the best fog nozzles,” he notes.

With no fire tax in those days, money was especially tight. In its first year the department borrowed $250 interest-free

Photo courtesy of Stokesdale Fire Department

The present-day fire station, located on U.S. 158 in downtown Stokesdale, was built in 1995 and dedicated in 1996. from the county to buy the fire truck, and another $500 the second year. Of course, the county held the notes on the vehicles until they were paid off.

“Early on, the firemen decided they needed flashlights in their pockets; they went to the board to get an okay to buy them (with their own money) and the board said ‘We can’t pay for the batteries.’ That’s my earliest memory of how tight things were,” Richardson recalled. “At the end of the first 10 years, I think we had about a $250 balance in our account.”

Rallying up the volunteer firemen on short notice was no small feat in the days before portable radios became the norm (in the 50s, the department had two radios, one on the fire truck and the other at the station). The first ones to respond to an emergency call in those days (which they typically were informed of via a telephone call) would jump in the fire truck, which was parked at Moseley’s station, and drive through downtown and along the rural roadsides, picking up firemen along the way.

“In those days, when you got a call, you dropped what you were doing if you possibly could,” said Richardson. “The first person who got there was the acting chief, regardless of who they were. They

were in charge until they were relieved.”

A big change to that procedure came when the department purchased an Army surplus siren, which gave it the ability to simultaneously alert volunteers within hearing range when there was a fire.

“The light bill to run the siren was more than the station lights,” Richardson said with a laugh.

“There were a lot of farmers who gave up their livelihood and showed up when the siren went off,” said Randy Southard, 61, who started volunteering with the department in 1968. “They had to show up, because some of the guys were working in Winston-Salem and on the other side of Greensboro.

You had to depend on the local guys who were here, or we were back to the 50s – ‘nice truck, but no people.’”

“They (the farmers) would leave the mules standing in the field and go answer the call,” confirmed Williams.

The addition of portable radios, pagers and monitors dramatically improved response times over the years.

Long into the 80s, when a fire engine had mechanical problems, volunteers would work on it until the wee hours of the morning, if necessary, to get it running again.

When the fire department eventually decided to expand its first fire station, the firemen did all the labor.

“The department back then was like a construction company,” said Gauldin.

“You had electricians, mechanics, plumbers, roofers, people who built houses, machine operators, and Northwest High School bricklayers who did some work during the school year.

Virgil Jones, who lived right beside the fire station was a heating and air conditioning guy … If we had the materials, we had all the knowledge we needed.”

Wayne Southern, 67, started hanging around the fire department when he was about 13 and his uncle was a volunteer fireman. Southern signed on as a volunteer in 1967. In addition to being a certified fireman, he has been a longtime member of the department’s board of directors, and serves as the department’s assistant chief. His two sons also volunteer with the department.

Southern describes the department’s first brush truck, which had once been an Army ambulance.

“It had brakes like Fred Flinstone’s car,” Southern said. “You had to coast to a stop. We took the body off (which only weighed about 5,000 pounds) and built our own. It would go anywhere. It was Army green when we got it, and we painted it yellow. It had a windshield

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Stokesdale Fire Department • 60 years of service to the community

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STOKESDALE FIRE DEPARTMENT 1954 First fire chief: Leonard Pegram 18 to 20 volunteers (no paid employees).

Fire station: within the first year, a tworoom building with a dirt floor Equipment: one fire truck that came with two helmets Communication system: dial-up telephone First response coverage area: 3 square miles Source of revenue: community members donated $25/year

2014 Fire chief: Todd Gauldin 27 volunteers; 5 trainees/cadets; 10 full-time staff; 7 part-time staff Fire station: built in 1995, 8,600 sq. ft.

Equipment: A 2008 Spartan/M&W firstresponse engine (holds 1,000 gallons of water and a 30-gallon foam tank), a 2003 Spartan/M&W second-out engine (holds 1,100 gallons water and a 30-gallon foam tank)., a 2010 Spartan/ M&W first-out tanker (holds 1,250 gallons of water), a 1995 Freightliner/ Quality second-out tanker (holds 1,000 gallons of water), and a 1999 Ford 4x4 F350 brush truck. With the exception of the brush truck, the engines and tankers carry a complement of medical equipment. Additionally, the department owns two full sets of extrication equipment, two thermal imaging cameras, a stowable light tower, and has about 60 sets of full turnout gear Communication system: portable radios, sirens, cell phones First response coverage area: 36 square miles, extending from Guilford County into Rockingham County Source of revenue: the department receives 10 cents per $100 of property value for everyone who lives in its district.

and two side windows, but no back windows.”

Firemen in the department’s earlier years received much of their training from the Guilford College Department, which at that time was under Chief Gene Parsons, and also relied on each other for training.

At one time the Department of Insurance also sent trainers out to Stokesdale, and countywide training became more available over time.

Another monumental change in the department came when the volunteers were trained to use the fog nozzle, which enabled them to accommodate different size hoses and cover a greater surface area.

Clinton Gauldin began volunteering with the department in 1965, and at age 74, he still actively volunteers.

His son, Todd, is Stokesdale’s current fire chief, and his other son is a fulltime fireman and captain with the Kernersville Fire Department.

Clinton, Richardson, Williams and other longtime members of the department remember many a night when they came in from fighting a fire and someone had cooked up 12 or more dozen eggs and several pounds of bacon for them.

It was about this time that the department’s volunteers insisted on getting proper gear, Richardson said.

“We weren’t going to all these other departments for training and not have adequate protective clothes. After that, a guy came out and measured us and we got a pretty good set of gear – it was just a coat and ¾-boots and a helmet, but it was more than a rain coat.”

In September 1968 the department started a cadet program for youth.

Though the youth weren’t allowed to ride on the fire truck, if they got to a location in their own vehicle, they could run errands.

Southard was in the cadet program’s first class. The six young men were taught by Winfred Dunlap, who was a captain at the time and would go on to serve as the department’s sixth chief.

“We were all local Stokesdale guys, and we went to school together,” Southard recalls. “We trained with the firemen every Tuesday night – we just couldn’t ride the truck.”

“A lot of our families got together at those times and spent the night with each other. The wives got involved also,” Richardson said.

Southard, the only original cadet who still serves with the Stokesdale Fire Department, became the department’s seventh fire chief.

“After Rob Moseley got past the point of fighting fires, he would cook fresh ham and eggs for us,” Chief Gauldin said. “You would come back from fighting a fire and Rob would be in the kitchen in the middle of the night.”

The purchase of a new tanker and the first rescue tool were the two most notable things which propelled the department forward in the 70s.

Of all the things that have changed over the years, the training and more sophisticated equipment have made the greatest impact, the longtime firemen agree.

Creating a board of directors around 1964 was another factor that set the course for the department. Southern, who has served on the board for almost 30 years, credits its past and present members with wise leadership

The department bought a new fire

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engine in 1966, and at the insistence of then fire marshal Bob Grant, it was purchased from American LaFrance, Richardson said. The new truck carried more hose and more water, and was considered quite an upgrade to the original truck.

Stokesdale Fire Department • 60 years of service to the community

“That tanker was one of the premiere tankers in Guilford County at the time,” Chief Gauldin said.

and being frugal.

Of being a volunteer fire chief, former chiefs Williams and Southard admit there were some added challenges, especially since they simultaneously held full-time paying jobs. Paperwork, meetings, working on equipment, and knowing they would usually be the last one to leave the station at the end of the day – or middle of the night – were part of the responsibilities they accepted.

“Leon was going several times a month to meetings 20 miles away to keep us up-to-date on what was going on,” Southard said. “Everybody was putting all the knowledge in a pot and sharing what they could to save lives.”

As the years passed, the department began responding to a wider variety of emergency calls, including boating and auto accidents.

How many training hours do firefighters receive?

To be certified as a firefighter Level 1 and 2, you must undergo 309 hours of training and pass a certification test; an additional 38 hours of HazMat Level 1 training is required.

For an emergency vehicle driver’s certification, an additional 20 hours of training is required.

An EMT must undergo another 160 hours of training.

Once certified, a minimum of 36 hours per year of ongoing training is needed to remain on the state roster.

“We had an ambulance across the street at Brooke Funeral Home. A lot of us got tied into running wreck calls early on because several of us rode along on ambulance calls,” Southard explained. “We started with a first aid program, then a first responder program, then an EMT program was offered right here.”

After upgrading and expanding the original fire station a few times, a decision was made to purchase land and build a new station. It took three years to get the deed, and the station, which has served the needs of the department since that time, was built in 1995.

Of some of the most memorable calls the firemen have responded to, a few stand out above all others.

Clinton Gauldin recalls the fire at Dale Councilman’s barn-type house decades ago on a night that saw temperatures well below freezing.

“As long as you were inside the house you were fine, but when you came back outside, your gear would freeze,” Gauldin said. The firemen fought the fire until about midnight, and thinking it was finally out, they went home.

“When I got home and took my coat off, it stood up on its own!”

Gauldin said as he recalled the frigid temperatures of that night.

But the story didn’t end there. No sooner had the firemen gone to bed when the alarm went off again, Williams said. The fire which they thought had been extinguished had flared back up, so once again they braved the cold temperatures and went back to try to save it. The firemen survived the cold, but unfortunately, the house was completely destroyed by fire.

More than a few times house fires started from someone putting hot ashes into a bucket and leaving it in the house, or on a porch. Tobacco barns, most of them built out of wood and fired by wood, were also once prevalent, but most of them eventually burned down.

Once, a house caught fire while a

Photo by Laura Pullins/NWO

Thanks to the past and present firemen, board members and chiefs of the Stokesdale Fire Department who met with us on April 23 to share their memories of the department’s 60-year history. Front row, L to R: Chief Todd Gauldin, Clinton Gauldin, and Leon Williams; Back row, L to R: Randy Southard, Bobby Richardson, Stuart Chandler, Wayne Southern and Michael Sellers. couple was in their living room watching television, oblivious to what was happening. The driver of a car which happened to be passing by saw the flames and stopped to tell them their house was on fire. Fortunately, all they lost was the end wall where the fireplace was.

Clinton Gauldin remembers the very first call he went on – he had just arrived at the fire station when Virgil Jones, who was chief at the time, shouted, “Get in!”

“I said, ‘I don’t even have my gear on yet – but, you’re the chief,’ so I got in,” Gauldin said.

Southard remembers responding to an emergency call at the worst traffic accident he has ever seen, in which two young men were killed. And there was the Christmas Eve when two people died in a house fire.

“It was nothing that we did wrong, but we just didn’t get there in time to save

lives,” he said.

On a humorous note, Southard also described a call the department went on several years ago at a local convenience store.

“It was on a hot day in July.

Apparently, a customer had had a little too much to drink and decided to cool off, so he opened the ice machine where the bags were stored and just fell right over in the ice,” Southard said.

“When we got there, he was stuck to the ice. We had to unstick him before we could help him. I have to say, that was funny. He wasn’t hurt – and he didn’t know he was stuck.”

Southern shared one of his more memorable calls, which came in one night as he was eating dinner at Humphrey’s Ridge on Belews Lake.

Only a mile away, he hopped in his car and was the first emergency responder to arrive on the scene.

“There was a fire up under a carport and in the pool,” Southern said. “I asked the guy what was wrong and he said, ‘I pulled the lawn mower up under the carport to put gas in it – then I spilled some gas. My dad doesn’t like gas on the porch, so I tried to burn the gas off the porch with a cigarette lighter.’”

As fate would have it, when the young man flipped his lighter open, it caught the gas on fire on the floor – plus a 5-gallon can of gas nearby. He proceeded to kick the can of gas, and it landed near some lounge chairs – which caught them on fire. So he kicked the can again, and it went out on the pool – and proceeded to melt the pool liner.

Chief Gauldin says that situation prompted one of the most unusual phone calls he’s ever had to make to the fire marshal.

“I called him on a Friday afternoon and

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Stokesdale Fire Department • 60 years of service to the community

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S

tokesdale Auxiliary

ince 1962, a small group of women has been providing support services to Stokesdale firefighters, often quietly behind the scenes; in 2000 the word “ladies” was dropped from what had previously been known as the Stokesdale Ladies Auxiliary, and men are now welcome and encouraged to join the Stokesdale Auxiliary.

by LAURA PULLINS When you think about the fire department, what comes to mind?

The brave souls dressed in flameretardant suits, safety helmets and oxygen tanks fighting the blazing structures before them?

Certainly.

But what we don’t often think about are their spouses and children, who sacrifice quality time and momentous occasions with their loved ones so they can respond to us in times of need, no matter where they are or what they’re doing.

After a trip to the post office and acquiring a list of everyone who lived in the Stokesdale fire district, Southern sent a letter to each resident in town with an invitation to join their newlyformed organization. The first meeting had about 20 attendees. Though Southern says many of them didn’t return for a second meeting, there was enough interest to get the organization off the ground.

“I learned real quickly, if I was going to be a part of Todd’s life, then I was going to be involved with the fire department,” says Robin Gauldin, who is married to Stokesdale’s fire chief, Todd Gauldin. “So I joined the Ladies Auxiliary, and I’ve been in it ever since.”

The auxiliary was composed of women volunteers who provided assistance to the fire department through fundraising efforts and other forms of support during emergencies.

Before fire trucks were equipped with water coolers, the fire department would rely on the auxiliary for “canteen-service,” in which the ladies would bring cold water and other refreshments to the firemen while they were engaged in responding to emergency fire calls.

It was a Sunday afternoon in 1962 when Lillie Southern and Nelda Fulp met at the fire station in Stokesdale to discuss starting an auxiliary. Southern’s late husband, Jack, was a career firefighter in Guilford County, and it was his involvement in the department that inspired Lillie to organize an auxiliary for the Stokesdale Fire Department.

The chief officer of the emergency call would assess the situation, determine the severity of the fire, estimate how long it would take to extinguish it, and tally how many men he had working. If the situation required the firefighters to be there for any considerable amount of time, he would call in the women for “reinforcements.”

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w o n d n a then

Stokesdale Fire Department • 60 years of service to the community

Illustration by Helen Ledford

“If the Bi-Rite was open, we’d gather supplies there … otherwise, we’d go to the Times Turnaround, when they were open 24 hours,” Robin Gauldin recalls.

Though the addition of more paid staff has lessened the emergency demands on the auxiliary, its members remain active and they would like to recruit more members.

Anyone who lives in the fire district can join the auxiliary – and it’s no

longer restricted to just ladies. In 2000, the Guilford County Fire Protective Association Auxiliary (GCFPAA) revised its bylaws to allow men to join; that change prompted auxiliaries in the county to drop the “ladies” from the name of their organization.

The revision to the bylaws allows those who are unable to commit to the rigorous training and on-call schedule

of being a fireman to still serve the department in some capacity. Though there are not yet any men volunteering with the Stokesdale Fire Department’s auxiliary, its members hope that will change.

For the past 21 years, Gauldin has been the secretary for the GCFPAA; during that time she’s seen it become more difficult to recruit new volunteers and fears that auxiliaries are slowly phasing out.

“We’re now down to 11 auxiliaries in the county, partly because so many fire departments have gone to paid staff,” Gauldin says. “We’ve lost two just since the first of this year.” Colfax’s auxiliary dissolved in January, and Julian’s dissolved in March, she notes.

The markers also save crucial time by preventing large fire trucks from maneuvering in and out of the wrong driveways while trying to reach the home in distress.

What’s more rewarding than the canteen service they provide or the fundraisers they hold, however, is the feeling auxiliary members take away from serving their community and the lifelong friendships they’ve built.

“Nobody has a clue how close we are; it’s not just the firemen, it’s the ladies and the families involved,” Gauldin says. “In my family, we always knew if the fire department wasn’t the No. 1 thing, it was close to the top!”

Want to join the Auxiliary?

But those still in existence continue to serve their communities in multiple ways. Stokesdale’s auxiliary holds several fundraisers throughout the year, including pancake breakfasts and yard sales, and supports the Good Samaritans’ Angel Tree project at Christmas.

The Stokesdale Fire Department’s auxiliary meets the first Monday of each month, September through May, at 7 p.m. at Station 12, 8401 U.S. 158. Call (336) 643-0790 for more information about joining.

And when a home is severely damaged due to fire, leaving families with nothing but the clothes on their backs, both the fire department and the auxiliary offer whatever forms of support they can, including donations of money and necessities.

DID YOU KNOW?

For the past two years, the auxiliary has also been selling reflective markers for mailboxes – a very successful fundraiser in more ways than one.

“There are a lot of people’s houses, that if it weren’t for those markers, the fire department wouldn’t be able to find them,” says Gauldin. “Especially in rural areas like Stokesdale, where you might have four or five mailboxes clumped together, and you have to go down a long driveway to determine who’s who.”

On average, it takes public safety service providers an extra 2 to 4 minutes to locate a home that does not have its house numbers displayed clearly for emergency service workers to see – and in an emergency situation, every moment counts when it comes to saving a life or a structure.

The Stokesdale Fire Department’s auxiliary sells reflective address markers which enable emergency responders to see your house numbers clearly in an emergency situation.

To purchase a reflective address marker, call (336) 643-0790.

continued from page 5 said, ‘Well, if I tell you, you’re not going to believe it … I’ve got an inground pool that is a total loss from a fire.’ The liner is melted, and the steps are melted. First he asked if I was serious, and then he said, ‘I’m on my way.’”

all been in it for the love of being in it, and they did whatever they had to do – including taking time away from family.

Michael Sellers, 23, joined the department as a volunteer in 2008 and is now a paid staff member. Mixed in with the humor and the rewards of the job that he loves are a few things he wishes he could forget – the most memorable so far being when he pulled up to a church that was burning to the ground.

“The old saying, ‘You don’t know what a man goes through until you walk a mile in his shoes’ – if ever there was a phrase that fits a fire chief, that is it,” Gauldin says of the department’s seven previous chiefs. “There is a lot that goes along with it. You have to know you’re going to make some sacrifices … your phone is going to ring at 3 in the morning. I totally agree that you have to be committed and dedicated – that’s what I picked up from Randy, Wimpy (Winfred Dunlap) and Leon. They were all honest … sometimes being honest with people is hard, but you have to do it. You’re not always working in the most pleasant conditions … heat, fire, smoke, and sometimes death. You have a lot of different personalities to work with and you’re trying to mesh those personalities.

“I’ll never forget seeing that,” Sellers said.

Chief Gauldin began training as a cadet in 1980, became the eighth parttime volunteer chief in 1993, and was hired as the department’s first full-time paid chief in 2002. During his 34 years with the department, he’s seen more homes built, more businesses opened in the town’s commercial district, and more emergencies to respond to.

“And with that growth, we started losing those farmers who had volunteered,” Gauldin said. “Our calls were increasing, our district was growing, and somebody had to answer the calls. The expectations were – and are – ‘If I pick up the phone and call 911, someone will be there to help me.’”

Richardson notes that Pine Needles LNG Company establishing a plant in Stokesdale several years ago had a significant impact on the department by helping to grow its tax base and enabling it to hire more people to replace a decline in available volunteers.

In the future, longtime volunteers like Stuart Chandler, 46, hope there will be always be those who carry forward the department’s community-oriented culture, which goes beyond just responding in an emergency situation.

Of the six fire chiefs who preceded him, and of Todd Gauldin, who came after him, Southard says the chiefs have

“And I never understood how important that was until I had kids,” Southard said.

“I tell these young guys, we would not be where we are at today had it not been for the work of those guys going back to the 50s and on through,” Gauldin continued. “The chiefs directed, but it took everybody – the chiefs, their officers and all the firefighters – to get to where we are today.”

And all those who have served on the board of directors over the years, Southern points out.

Last, but certainly not least, are the “moms, dads, wives and kids who give up so we can serve,” Southard added.

“Because we missed the suppers, the birthday parties, and the first time our babies rolled over. We missed some of what we signed up to do, and they supported us through it.”

And why do these individuals do what they do? No matter who we asked, the answer was the same.

“It’s just something we love.”

Stokesdale Fire Department • 60 years of service to the community

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own to kickoff

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