KC will unveil rare antique fire helmet display at special 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony on Sept. 11

Kilgore College will hold a special 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony on Sept. 11 – and will hold a ceremony to unveil a rare fire helmet display recently donated to the KC Fire Academy.

Sixteen antique fire helmets – dating from as far back as the 1800s from Austria, Switzerland, Scotland, France, Germany and the United States – were recently donated by Eddy Hadaway.

The “9/11 Remembrance and International Fire Helmet Collection Reveal” is set for 2 p.m. Monday, Sept. 11, on the first floor of the Technical/Vocational Building on the Kilgore campus.

Hadaway served as a firefighter for the Kilgore Fire Department for a number of years and was a founding member of Kilgore Rescue.  He was also instrumental in bringing the third set of “Jaws of Life” to Texas, utilized by Kilgore Rescue.

In addition to the unveiling of the fire helmet display, there will also be on display a unique fire extinguisher collection on loan from Kilgore Fire Department firefighter, Zachary Sivertsen, alumnus of KC Fire Academy #102 which graduated in 2017.

The collection includes extinguishers dating back to the late 1800s, including a small Pyrene Pump Extinguisher that was patented in 1912.

It was an extinguisher used successfully with machinery being introduced in the early 1900s (motorcycles and airplanes, etc.)

For more information on the ceremony, contact Johnny Zackary, KC Fire Academy director, at jzackary@kilgore.edu or (903) 988-3752.