| Epworth Fire Dept News
In memory of Fire Chief Daniel A. McDermott Spring 2008
The Last Dance in the Old Station
The 2008 Annual Firemen's Dance will be a special one as it will be the last dance we will have in
our current fire station. Construction is expected to begin soon - when the weather cooperates - on the new
station that will be located at 191 East Jacoby Drive in Epworth. Dances have been a long time fund raising
activity and have been held in the current fire station since it was built in 1973. This fund raiser supports the
operation of the volunteer paramedic ambulance transport service the department offers to the community and
surrounding area. The ambulance service is funded mainly through insurance payments on user fees,
donations, memorials and this dance. Medical equipment and EMS training costs continue to soar and the
department is due to replace the current ambulance with a newer model. The importance of this dance to
supplement our budget is critical to the operations of the service. The community has been very supportive
over the past years and we hope you will once again answer our call for assistance.
This year the dance will be held on Saturday, May 24
th
at the Epworth Fire Station, 212 N. Center
Avenue. This years main event will be "The-In Crowd Band." The gates will open at 8:00 p.m. with
dancing from 9:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m. Admission is $5.00. Food and refreshments will be served.
We are pleased to announce that the "Trouble City Band - Reunited" will be back for one last dance
in the station. Trouble City Band members John Klostermann, Tom Danner and Tom Kopp will be once again
be sharing their talent for the dancers. Trouble City Band was a fire department favorite for several years in
the early 1980's and we are very excited to have them return for our last dance. After much negotiation on
several fire department members behalf, Kevin Frommelt will also be returning for the weekend and will be
singing a few tunes as he did on special occasions in fire department dance history. Born and raised in
Epworth, Kevin was the lead singer for the Road Runners Band in the late 1970's and now lives in the
Minneapolis area. Also, how can we relive all of the old Firemen's Dance Day's without our very own
yodeling retired Fire Captain, Dorrance McDermott. We hope Dorrance will be on hand one last time as we
wrap up our fund raising in the old station. Jack Silker and company will have the charcoal grill fired up and
cooking your favorite sandwich.
Hopefully we will pack the fire house on the 24th. We are asking you to join us for our "Last Dance
in the Old Station". We can probably guarantee rain, wind and cold weather, but as always we guarantee a
great time with old friends, cold refreshments and great Silker's food.
Fire Department Launches Website
The Epworth Fire Department has
launched a new web site to allow people
to track the information about the new
station and other fire department information. This
newsletter will be short due to the information
c o n t a i n e d o n t h e w e b s i t e a t
www.epworthiowafire.org. Check it out!
Firemen's Picnic set for July 11th
July 11 th will be the date for the 60th anniversary of the Epworth Firemen's
Picnic. The event will be held at Tower
Park in Epworth, starting at 6:30 p.m. It will be a
fun filled family event to support the fire
department operations and training costs. There
will be kids games, adult games of chance, food
and refreshments. Please watch for more info.
2 In memory of Fire Chief Daniel A. McDermott Spring 2008
Firefighter II Course
Nine members of the Epworth Fire
Department completed the
Firefighter 2 Training Course over
the past winter months. Al Reuter, Chris Reuter,
Dale Hefel, Dale Snyder, Todd Kluesner, Andy
Sprengelmeyer, Dan Ernzen, Shannon Kramer and
Gary Wilgenbusch successfully completed the
course taught by Epworth Fire Instructor Al Esch.
The class involved classroom education and
numerous hands on evolutions. The course is
coordinated through NICC and the State of Iowa
Fire Service Training Bureau.
Fire Station Update
At the April 22nd City of Epworth
Council Meeting, the council approved
the financing for the fire station
project. Epic Construction was the low bidder for
construction of the new station. Epic worked
closely with the fire department, Gardner
Architecture and the City to provide change orders
in order to get the project back into budget.
Horsfield Construction was awarded the contract
for the concrete and curb project. Top Grade
Excavating was awarded the contract for the storm
sewer work. Both Epworth companies offered
prices on the project that were lower to show their
support of the fire department. Without their
generosity it was highly likely that the project may
not have moved forward. The owners and
employees of both companies need to be
commended on their generosity and support of our
fire department. In addition to the low bid, HCI
will be completing the site work once the weather
allows them to. The fire department committed
$200,000 of in-kind donations and work on the
project and the donations from HCI and Top Grade
will help us meet our goal. Once the site work is
complete, Epic Construction will start on the
building. We are hoping to be in the new station
by Thanksgiving.
Fire Department Contracts for
EMS Billing
The Epworth Fire Department has
contracted with Wisconsin based
Lifequest to handle all of the billing
operations of the ambulance service. Lifequest
began providing service for the fire department in
January of 2007. Prior to that time the department
did its own billing and found in recent years it was
more and more difficult to process bills correctly to
get reimbursed for the calls. The past year has
seen some minor glitches in the billing process,
however we feel it was a move we needed to make.
We were seeing an ever increasing amount of
statements being denied due to processing errors or
not using the correct form. Lifequest provides all
of our forms and completes all of the follow up
with the insurance companies. Our greatest
concern about having a 3
rd
party conduct our
billing was losing the local, personal, small town
billing process. Lifequest has worked very hard to
help us adapt to the new system without causing
hardships on our patients. The billing process can
be somewhat confusing, so if you have any
questions about a statement received you can call
the 800 number on the statement to Lifequest or
you can call Fire Chief Tom Berger at 563-876-
3321 or 563-543-1704. Unfortunately, operating
a volunteer ambulance service has to be operated
as a business in order to pay for expenses. As a
small, volunteer fire department ambulance
service, we do not want our statements to be a
hardship on our patients and we can make
arrangements on a case by case basis.
CHECK US OUT ON THE
WEB AT:
www.epworthiowafire.org
Thank you for your support! |
