KSA Engineers, with an office in Longview, conducted the holiday donation campaign and urged people to vote for their local volunteer fire department daily on their website and then after the 25 days of voting awarded the $1,000 donations to five different departments across the state.

Here in DeKalb, the push was led by Paula Booth who used Facebook to get the word out and reminded everyone on a daily basis to go and place their vote. When the voting was over, over 24,000 total votes had been cast and DeKalb sat firmly in 5th place in the final tally, earning the award.

"I updated our Facebook page twice a day, every day, throughout the entire contest," said Booth, "We are so excited. We have plans to put up a digital sign that will spotlight burn bans, safety information, etcetera. I think it is really neat that we got this and want to thank everyone who voted for us."

Ned Muse from KSA Engineers was in DeKalb Monday night to present the award to the local department and said that the company lives and works in small communities of Texas and knows the need is there.

“These volunteer fire departments do so much for their communities and are always in need of new equipment to do what they do and we wanted to do our part to help them,” said Muse.

DeKalb Fire Chief Robbie Barrett said, “This will be a big help to us. You know we have responded to a lot of calls this year and we are always needing new equipment. We are always wanting to thank the community around here for what they do to help us and we sure appreciate them voting for us so we could get this.”

Other departments receiving the donation included Muldoon, South Brazos County, Hamilton and Holly Lake.

"Many of the departments around Texas have been stretched thin by the rash of fires this summer and fall," said Joncie Young, KSA president. "We wanted to extend a helping hand to the volunteer fire departments that have been put to the test this year."

Also in the meeting Monday night, Chief Barrett and the whole department recognized Booth for all of her efforts and for the hard work she does every day for the department by naming her the first ever female recipient of the DeKalb Volunteer Fire Department Firefighter of the Year.

“She deserves it,” said Barrett, “She does a lot more than just being a dispatcher. She is kind of the glue that holds it all together. I am so glad we could give this to her.”