Bob Winters and Jim Johnston honored for 35 years of service
By Kyle LoJacono
Staff Writer
ZEPHYRHILLS — The work of a volunteer firefighter is dangerous, time consuming and exhausting. There is no paycheck but Bob Winters, Fire Rescue of Zephyrhills president, said the job itself is reward enough.
“I’ve been with the volunteer fire rescue since 1973,” Winters said. “It’s just something I love doing, and to do it you have to love it. It’s truly a calling and I was called to do it.”
Bob Winters and volunteer Jim Johnston received ornamental axes last Christmas to honor their years of service. FRZ gives out the axes to those who have served for at least 35 years. The axes are 36-inches long and made entirely of bronze.
“It was a very nice gesture from the station,” said Johnston, operations coordinator for the Pasco County Office of Emergency Management. “It is special…I love the people I’ve worked with and serving Zephyrhills.”
Most people probably think of an ax as just a tool, but to volunteers it has a deeper meaning.
“Axes are special to firefighters,” he said. “Trumpets are also given out as awards by some fire departments because those tools are some of the ones we work closest with. They just have a special meaning to firefighters.”
Dale Barnett, vice president of FRZ, speaks highly of his fellow volunteers.
“They are just the best guys in the world,” Barnett said. “(Firefighters) are really part of a brotherhood. I mean you depend on the other guys for your life.”
Barnett said he has fought fires with Johnston and Winters in the past, and that there is no one he would rather have on his side.
While the men can think back on all the good times they have had serving the community together, other moments are not so happy.
“Downtown caught on fire once early in my career, and that was very dangerous,” Winters said. “There was fire everywhere and it took a long time to put out.”
Johnston said of the downtown fire, “The thing about that fire was how big it was, and of course when you have a fire in the middle of downtown it’s a little different.”
The fire downtown was a memorable one, but if Johnston and Winters were just starting as volunteers they might have been able to avoid a blaze so intense.
“The biggest thing that has changed since I started volunteering is the advent of smoke detectors,” Winters said. “I don’t know what the actual figures are, but I’d say that putting smoked detectors in buildings has reduced the number of calls into the station by about 60 to 65 percent.”
The FRZ was the first fire-fighting agency in Zephyrhills. The city did not hire its first firefighter and fire chief until 1969.
Barnett explained that very few people ever make it to 35 years of service because they usually get the training need to be a paid firefighter.
“It takes a special kind of person to do this for nothing,” Barnett said.
Even though Barnett has more than a decade less of service than Winters and Johnston, he will be in line for an ax of his own in less than a year.
“I’m looking forward to my own ax, even though it will be the smaller one,” he said. “I guess I’ll just have to keep doing it to get my own big ax, and I will because there is a certain special challenge in doing this. All three of us have been involved in the Zephyrhills community for years, so we want to give back as long as we can.”
Winters and Johnston agree the axes are special and look good, but both had a minor defect when it arrived.
“It had a chip in it,” he said. “They got me a new one though for over my fireplace.”
Johnston’s was also chipped, but has also been replaced.
“I don’t have a fireplace to put mine over like Bob, but it’s up on my wall,” Johnston said. “It’s a full-size ax, so it can’t just go anywhere. It certainly stands out on my wall.”
Other volunteer firefighter awards from 2009
- Pete Rodhrig 25 years
- Jim Kuhn 25 years
- Ralf Velez 20 years
- Kevin Wong 15 years
- Michael Gibbs 15 years
