By GINNY COOPER / Staff writer

WILSONVILLE—When Lenny Fowler, Jim Blackmon and Jim Blackmon, Jr. delivered steaming coffee and homemade biscuits to more than two dozen truckers during the snowstorm on Jan. 28 they were not looking for accolades.

“I don’t think it’s really a big deal. We were just trying to help,” Fowler said.

BR Williams Trucking, Inc., the company most of the stranded truckers worked for, felt differently. After discovering that Jim Blackmon, Jr. was the Wilsonville assistant fire chief, the company decided to show their gratitude to the entire brigade by throwing a dinner for Fowler, the fire brigade and their wives.

“We enjoyed the opportunity to serve ‘Everyday Heroes’ and considered it our honor to pay back the kindness that was shown to our drivers,” Misty Skinner, director of marketing and public relations for BR Williams said.

For the dinner, seven BR Williams employees, including CEO Greg Brown, served the firefighters chicken fingers, three sides, dessert and tea. Brown said a word of thanks to the firefighters for their work and offered a prayer for the food.

Wilsonville fire chief Davy Edwards said he was surprised and pleased when the company contacted him to express their thanks.

“We don’t get thank yous like this a lot,” he said.

However, Edwards stressed that the act of kindness was not an official function of the fire department.

“It was not a fire truck function. It was just the assistant chief and his daddy who carried food to them.”