Templeton firefighters unveiled new badges featuring the historic Feed & Grain building, preserving a community landmark destroyed by fire

By Melissa Chavez
The Tribune

TEMPLETON, Calif. — A piece of Templeton history lost to fire will now be carried by the community’s firefighters.

The badges were presented during the Templeton Community Services District board meeting, with firefighters, their families and members of the Jermin family — owners of Templeton Feed & Grain — gathered for a ceremony that had been kept largely secret from the family.

The Jermins also got a close-up look at the new badges as Fire Chief Tom Peterson brought them over during the unveiling.

Capt. Phillip Goldbloom came up with the idea after the Feed & Grain fire.

The building already appeared on the department’s engines, shoulder patches, letterhead and other materials, Goldbloom said. After the fire, he approached Fire Chief Tom Peterson about putting the image on something firefighters carry with them every day — their badges.

Changing the insignia firefighters wear was not something the department took lightly, Peterson said.

“Changing a badge for departments is not a small deal,” he said.

Peterson said he and Goldbloom considered the implications before deciding it was “the best thing to do.”

“Keep the tradition alive and kind of memorialize it on the badge,” Peterson said. New badge was six months in the making

Goldbloom worked with Sun Badge Co. on the design, a process Peterson said took a little more than six months as artwork went back and forth for revisions.

“They would do an artwork rendition and, you know, three weeks later, send it back to us,” Peterson said. “I’d be like, ‘Nope.’ Send it back.”

After several rounds, Peterson said, “I think it was the third one that I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s it.’”

The Feed & Grain dominates the center of the finished badge, surrounded by traditional fire service imagery and the California State Seal. Different finishes distinguish ranks: gold for the chief, two-tone for captains and silver for engineers.

Fourteen badges were made — two for each of the department’s seven career firefighters.

Peterson presented the new badges to Capts. Goldbloom , Brandon Wall and Rob Baker and Fire Engineers Sarah Wells , Logan Handley and Cameron Rodlin .

Wells, the only woman among the department’s career firefighters, was the first firefighter called forward to receive a new badge.

Baker, the department’s B-shift captain, was promoted to captain in 2023 after previously serving in the position on an interim basis. Wall serves as the department’s training officer and has helped lead its firefighter stair-climb efforts, including Templeton’s annual Sept. 11 memorial climb. ‘A lot of emotions’

For Wall, the badge carries memories of what firefighters and the community experienced when the Feed & Grain building burned.

“It was pretty surreal, to be perfectly honest,” Wall said. “For all of us.”

The night of the fire and the days that followed brought “a lot of emotions,” he said.

“A lot of anger. Sadness — sadness more than anything,” Wall said. “That’s our town’s iconic symbol, and it’s gone.”

But the Feed & Grain remains on the department’s apparatus and patches, and now it will remain on its badges.

“We always say we’re never gonna forget,” Wall said. “And we never will either.”

Wall also credited Goldbloom for the work that went into the project.

“The badges are very nice,” he said. “Pretty much shows you what our community’s about, so we don’t forget.”

Rodlin experienced the fire from another vantage point. His crew was first to arrive.

“It was a tough fire to fight,” Rodlin said.

“It seemed like no matter how much water we put on it, it was just burning so hot,” he said.

There were pockets firefighters could not reach, Rodlin said, and losing the building was “a real bummer.”

“It’s a big part of the community and big part for us,” he said.

The badges, Rodlin said, offer another way “to honor the Feed & Grain” and preserve the memory of a place that was a staple of the community and the department. A ‘fresh new start’

Fire Engineer Logan Handley received one of the department’s new Feed & Grain badges during the Sept. 15 unveiling. Handley worked long nights following the fire as embers deep inside the wreckage threatened to flare up.

His thoughts about the badge extended to people who will know a Templeton without the Feed & Grain standing in it.

“You know, that’s a building that a lot of people now are not going to maybe grow up around, where most of us were around it every single day,” Handley said.

The badge offered “kind of like a fresh, new start,” he said, while representing both the community and the service the department provides. Department wanted to be sure Jermin family could attend

The Jermin family’s presence was important enough that Peterson said the department would have postponed the unveiling if family members had been unable to attend.

Keeping the plan secret was another matter.

“I almost blew it,” Peterson said of inviting the family.

Stacy Jermin had known about the plan since February, but other family members did not.

Rick Jermin said he was “totally surprised.”

For Goldbloom, seeing the family’s response was the culmination of the months spent developing the badge.

“When I saw their reaction tonight, I knew we had done what we set out to do,” he said.

“This wasn’t just a building to them. It was their family, their history, and a part of their lives,” Goldbloom said.

The fire “left a mark on Templeton , and it left a mark on all of us who were there that night,” he said.

The ceremony did not keep the small department together for long.

Within minutes of the presentation, Wells and Goldbloom left to respond to a medical call in Atascadero .

The new badges went with them.

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