Editor, Gazette-Journal: I am writing to commend the Gazette-Journal for the wonderful article of a few weeks ago about the volunteer work being done on the Mathews Volunteer Fire Department’s new Station Number 1 and saving tens of thousands of dollars in total construction costs. This has been a MVFD tradition since the establishment of the Mathews Fire Protection Association in 1947. My father, Tom Hunley, was one of the founding members of the fire department and served 26 years as department chief. Volunteer members built the first one-bay fire station at Mathews C.H. and, with the help of Willie Brewer of Bohannon, built the first fire equipment in-house consisting of a soda and acid pumper and a tank truck. Our first factory-made fire engine was delivered to Mathews on Jan. 22, 1949. Coincidentally, that was the day I was born. By 1973, MVFD had outgrown its small station. Because we could not afford an architectural firm to produce the design work, a committee of firemen design...