By Nate Strauch
Herald Democrat
POTTSBORO, Texas — After years of fundraising, the Preston Volunteer Emergency Services Foundation has finally raised the funds to construct a new EMS facility. When completed next fall, the new building will cut response times for Pottsboro and many other locations across the PVES coverage area.
“PVES has both a fire department and an ambulance service,” said PVES Board of Directors President Mike Davis. “Our fire department has a (coverage) district of 26 square miles and the ambulance service has 96 square miles. Right now, we’ve got our fire station on Preston (Peninsula), where the EMS units are. So we started looking at it a couple of years ago, trying to figure out we needed to do. And we finally settled on moving the EMS department out of the station into its own building.”
Money for the new facility was raised over a period of several years through drives and events, especially the organization’s annual Boot Scootin’ Ball, which draws a four-figure crowd to a ranch near Lake Texoma every October. PVES Foundation leader Nancy Anderson said the effort was exactly the kind of endeavor for which the Foundation was created.
“It was just impossible to save enough money to buy an ambulance, for instance, from the income that we get from the County and the city of Pottsboro,” said Anderson. “So that’s the reason for the PVES Foundation. And then in about 2006, we … added a designated line on the sponsor contract, where if you checked that, then your dollars would be earmarked for the new building.”
Organizers are currently deciding between two locations for the new EMS station, one near the intersection of State Highway 289 and FM 406 near Pottsboro, and the other farther north near Tanglewood Crossing. Either location would provide for faster response times, said Davis.
“Our plan is we’re going to build a new building that will house our two ambulances and our full-time EMS staff at that location. And what that will give us is better response time to Pottsboro and better response time out to — we go all the way out to Mill Creek and over to Locust and that area. So it evens out our response time a little bit.”
In addition to the new facility, the Foundation will be refurbishing the current PVES headquarters, which will continue to house fire response services for the area.
“It’s an old station and it needs some tender loving care, so we’re going to spend a little money on it, and spruce it up, too,” said Davis.
Both Davis and Anderson emphasized that the announcement, the renovations and the $265,000 new building itself wouldn’t have been possible without the generosity of local donors.
“Since the Boot Scootin’ Ball has started, we’ve spent over a half-million dollars for equipment and training for the fire and ambulance,” said Anderson. “So (the Ball) has definitely served its purpose. … The community out here, they really appreciate the quality of service, and they’re willing to pay for it. It’s just an awesome group of people.”
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©2014 the Herald Democrat (Sherman, Texas)