Samuel Alexander Sloan was born at home on the family farm four miles north of Urich in 1933. He went to school in Blairstown, and when he was 16, was recruited along with eight or nine other boys to join the Air Force Reserve by Floyd Pinkston. Lt. Colonel Pinkston had started out working for The Clinton Eye for six cents an hour after high school, and after serving in World War II, worked his way up to become the newspaper’s editor and co-publisher.
“We met on the west side of the square once a month, in the Henry County Courthouse,” Sam said. “We also came down the Clinton Square to chase girls.”
For the next seven and half decades, Sam pursued a productive life, starting in Minnesota, where he went to work on a big grass seed farm. When he came back to Henry County, he built his first grain elevator in Green Ridge.
On May 6, Sam, who is 91, shared some of the fruits of his labors with the Calhoun Volunteer Fire Department, presenting them with a check for half a million dollars.
“This was a shocker,” said Calhoun FD Chief Mark Hardin. “At the end of March, the department had $139 in our bank account. Now we have $500,139.”
“We are excited, to say the least.”
It’s the people, Sam said, when asked why he chose the Calhoun Fire Department. The responsibility of choosing who to give money to is one he takes seriously, he said, and it’s important to him to be on the same wavelength as the recipients. Before writing the CFD a check, he met with Mark three times to talk about the needs of the Calhoun FD, which Mark built up from scratch in the last three years.
“I took over as fire chief in 2021, and there was only one person in the department,” he said. “Now there are 28 —six women and 22 men.”
“We’re all volunteers.”
Sam, who lives in Windsor, had previously made financial gifts to the local fire department and for the sports fields. He also donated the Sloan Chevrolet dealership building on West Benton to the Windsor Historical Society, which it for meetings, and housing the Windsor Historical Museum.
The Calhoun FD is now going shopping for new (to them) trucks to put in the fire department building on Hwy. 52, brand new fire engines being prohibitively expensive, Mark said. At one time, the Calhoun FD didn’t have any vehicles, Mark said, having lost their one truck during a house fire.
“Kevin Webber, the department’s medical chief, and I are heading out tomorrow to Ohio to look at a pumper tanker for sale,” Mark said.
In all, they are planning to buy two pumper tankers, he said, which will each hold 2,000 gallons of water, plus a brush truck and an engine to replace two older ones, both of which are more than 40 years old. The Calhoun FD handles wild land fires and well as structure fires, Mark said.
The volunteer firefighters in Calhoun are also getting all new turnout gear, from head to toe: helmets, coats, pants and boots. The old gear dated from the late 1980s.
“We’re catching up,” Mark said.
A representative from Cairns was scheduled to be in Calhoun last week to measure the firefighters for their new gear. Originally based in New York, Cairns has a history of producing quality turnout gear — the company founder invented the first American fire helmet, which was made of leather, according to James Jones, the Calhoun FD public information officer. The helmets the CFD are ordering are made of more modern material, he said, but have a traditional look.
“The traditional style goes back to the history and camaraderie of the fire service,” James said.
James is a fighter-jet mechanic at Whiteman AFB and lives outside of Windsor, but joined the Calhoun FD in 2022 when he heard they needed volunteers. James is originally from Cole Camp, where his mother runs the German Table restaurant.
Brandon Cole, the Calhoun FD assistant fire chief, is also from Windsor. At the May 6 check presentation, Sam accepted the mantle of CFD honorary fire chief, as represented by a helmet presented by Mark.
Sam was drafted and served in the Army for two years in 1959, when he was 26, he said. After getting his start in the grass seed business in Green Ridge, he started seed elevators in Windsor, Warsaw, Golden City and one in Lockwood that held nine million pounds of seed. He also had two car dealerships, in Windsor and Warrensburg. His seed warehouse in Sedalia was 130,000 square feet, he said, and his companies shipped fescue seed all over Missouri and the United States.
“Looking back, it’s been a pretty good life,” Sam said, “although everything didn’t always go smoothly.”
Throughout his life, he said, he kept moving, buying businesses, selling businesses and making money. Now 91 years old, he knows what direction he is headed— back home. He plans to be buried in the Grant Cemetery west of Blairstown, where his mother and all the Samuel Sloans that came before him are laid to rest: great-grandfather James Samuel Sloan, grandfather Samuel Alexander Sloan II, and father Samuel Alexander Sloan III.
Sam’s grandfather was born in 1854 in Ohio and died age 51 in 1904 in Creighton. His father died in 1993 at age 86.
Sam’s mother, Evelyn Mae Sloan, died in 1938 at age 31 due to complications after the birth of Sam’s youngest brother, Gary. An aunt moved into the household to help raise Sam, his brother Darryl and the baby.
Sam IV already has his obituary written — it takes up an entire page, he said. He will rest easy knowing his life’s work is benefitting people who are dedicated to serving their community.
“They’re a good bunch,” he said of the Calhoun FD.
The Calhoun Fire Department’s old pumper truck is also finding a new home — the Calhoun FD is planning to offer it to the Blairstown Fire Department, Mark said.
