By Rachel McDaniel If you see a bright red fire hydrant while riding through Barnesville, chances are that 77-year-old Ralph Jones volunteered his time to repaint it. He was given the task of repainting a few of Barnesville’s fire hydrants a couple years ago during the Great Day of Service and has continued to paint hydrants since then – giving a fresh coat of paint to over half of the city’s 41 fire hydrants ‘Ralph Jones of Redbud Drive participated this year in the Great Day of Service and has so far personally scraped and painted 34 city fire hydrants for our city fire department and for our community,’ said Mark Stone who also volunteered in this year’s GDOS projects. ‘He has given an outstanding single effort that has benefitted the city and citizens.’ Ralph and his wife worked together to paint the first fire hydrants but she has since injured her arm and now he works alone. ’At first, my wife Annette and I had a spray painting contest to see who could do the best job,’ he said. ‘ I do two or three at a time and I really enjoy doing it. It’s something that can be done periodically. This would be a great project for a group like the Boy Scouts to repaint them every few years.’ In order to repaint the hydrants, Jones has to use a wire brush and scrape away years worth of dirt and grime and get past the faded paint so the new coat will stick and dry correctly. He said each hydrant varies in the length of time it takes to complete. Some take him around 40 minutes while others may take an hour and a half. He uses cardboard to keep the overspray off the knobs that are painted blue. Balamo Building Supply donated a case of red Rust-Oleum spray paint which included six cans but Jones has used all of the cans and has bought more, including two new wire brushes after brushing all the bristles off the first ones. ’I’m 77 years old so I’m not a spring chicken doing this,’ said Jones. ‘The Great Day of Service is a good thing to be doing in the community to get other people involved in helping. I think younger people who see us older folks helping out are more inclined to pitch in and help.’
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