By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
But the possibility of the truck returning to Hays permanently is now in question after attempts to raise funds to purchase the truck have only garnered a few thousand dollars and just a few have taken up the challenge of bringing it home.
Brad Corley, president of the Wichita Falls, Texas, fire museum, has owned the truck since 2012 and hopes to see the truck return to Hays.
"I haven't gotten anywhere with anybody (in Hays) about selling it locally," he said. "I would like to get it up to that area."
"I have had it in dry storage for three years waiting for them to get funds to get it," Corley said.
"I can sell it, but I would just like for it to go there because 100 years is a big deal for a fire engine," Corley said.
He warned if it is sold to a private museum elsewhere it would likely never return to Hays.
And while Corley is not in a rush to sell the engine, maintenance and storage cost over the years have added up. While he said "it's a beautiful truck and it's a joy to have," after waiting patiently for something to happen in Hays to bring the truck home, expenses continue to mount.
"I can't keep on like this," he said. "It's like I told them two years ago. I am paying insurance on a $50,000 truck and I'm not taking it out. It is just sitting in a barn."
And there is no room for the truck in the museum in Wichita Falls.
"It's something that we have that we don't need here," Corley said. "We have 23 fire trucks."
Corely said if he could get the $28,500 he put into the truck by a private collector in the area, he would even donate $5,000 to the museum in memory of Richard Shubert, a retired member of the Hays Fire Department who spent 30 years searching for the truck.
Lack of support
While many would like to see the truck return, the effort to secure funds has been impacted by a lack of recent activity.
Tim Detrixhe, president of the Hays Firefighters Relief Association, said after a Hansen Foundation grant application for funding the purchase was rejected, interest from the group diminished.
"It just took a back-burner," he said. "It was one of those things, for us it would be really awesome to have it here, but ... we were putting a lot of hope that the grant would go through. But when it didn't, I think a lot of guys lost interest."
The grant application was submitted by the Ellis County Historical Society, the home of the Firefighter's Museum that houses the second and third motorized Hays firetrucks.
"They are the ones that have to submit the grant because of their not-for-profit designation," Detrixhe said.
The fire association has ownership of the equipment at the museum and the museum has the responsibility of maintaining the building in which the equipment is housed, said Brad Boyer, historical society president.
"We had nothing to do with the funding," Boyer said.
Boyer said the historical society was supposed to work with the FRA to prepare another grant request, but Boyer said the grant was not received.
And the society does not have the ability to buy the truck itself.
"We don't have finances to purchase it," Boyer said.
Even if funding is secured to purchase the truck, finding a place to put it on display and ongoing costs associated with ownership would also need to be addressed.
"This isn't just a one-time purchase," Detrixhe said. "There is ongoing maintenance and things we would have to consider."
Expanding the museum would also carry a substantial cost.
"We went out a got bids for construction from three construction companies, and the low bid was still more than the truck was going to cost," Detrixhe said. "So now you are not raising $25,000, you are raising $50,000."
And without the grant, the work required to raise that amount of money is not something the FRA members want to take on.
"Other than trying to go out and do a full-blown fundraiser to get this thing, we are more or less out of options," Detrixhe said, noting the FRA members overwhelmingly voted down any fundraising action.
Despite the ongoing struggle to find the funds for the truck to return, Detrixhe said he would appreciate the truck coming back to Hays.
"It's a piece of Hays' history. It's a piece of the fire department's history. It was the first motorized truck the city ever bought, so it has historical value," he said.
Many others in the FRA, however, do not share the enthusiasm to bring the truck back to Hays.
"I think a lot of guys are happy to know it exists and it's in a safe place and, if it gets sold, we know where it is. If it gets sold to somebody other than us, I think a lot of guys are happy knowing it is out there," Detrixhe said.
Hope remains
But some are not so quick to let it go.
Roger Rife, retired fire chief with the Hays Fire Department, said he is disappointed in the lack of effort to bring the truck home and is ready to take action on his own and supports Corely's efforts to see the truck return to Hays.
"Brad has been unbelievably super with this thing," Rife said. "He has been holding onto this thing forever."
After the Hansen Foundation grant to purchase the truck was denied, he said he saw much of the desire to purchase the truck dwindle.
"I thought surely I could find someone that would be willing to help," Rife said, but outside of $3,500 secured by Firefighters Relief Association, no efforts have been made to find other funding.
So now he is willing to strike out on his own in an effort to make it happen.
"Anything I can do to possibly get something going," Rife said.
And Detrixhe said he was receptive to the idea as well.
"If there is other interest and we are not going it alone, I think I could rally support," he said.
Anyone with interest in working to find the truck a permanent home in the area can contact Rife at 785-623-1852.
Hays Post reporter Cristina Janney contributed to this story.
