Bakersfield Fire Chief Greg Watts is the 2025 Hootin an Hollarin parade marshal

With this year’s Hootin an Hollarin theme being “Neighbors Helping Neighbors,” it’s only fitting that Bakersfield Fire Chief Greg Watts was chosen as parade marshal. After all, helping neighbors is what Greg has been doing his whole life.

Greg was born in Mountain Home, Arkansas, and grew up just across the state line in the tiny town of Ott. He attended school in Viola, graduating with the class of 1989. But even before he had his diploma in hand, Greg was already serving.

“It was mid-summer 1988, right before my senior year when I joined the fire department,” he remembered. “I was still in school, so I could only help on weekends or at night. After graduation, I got more involved. Oscar Durham was the chief then, and every time the fire truck went through town, it seemed like he was by himself. I started tagging along more and more... and here I am today.”

After graduation, Greg went to work for the Missouri Department of Transportation, where he spent 19 years before briefly taking a railroad job. The railroad life wasn’t a good fit, so he moved on to Cloud 9 Ranch in Caulfield.

“Then in 2010, Monte Shipley came and talked me into conservation, a job that had a lot of what I liked to do” Greg said. “We checked conservation areas, cleaned up, trapped bears, worked with wildlife. We put in food plots, ran dozers, marked timber... all kinds of things.”

That work also included fighting wildfires, something Greg was well-prepared for after more than two decades with the Bakersfield Volunteer Fire Department.

In 2017, Greg left conservation to start a new adventure. That fall, he began driving a fuel truck into hurricane-ravaged areas.

“I get a call from Matt Richerson, who owns API (Amicalola Propane Inc.). A group of us from Missouri head down to Georgia with trucks and trailers,” Greg explained. “They send us to a designated spot, and we supply fuel for communication and cell towers.”

In the early days, Greg’s wife, Zaylor, often traveled with him, but these days she stays home with their three daughters, Clara, Tera, and Kacy, keeping the household running, getting the girls to and from school and handling the paperwork side of the fuel business.

When he’s back home, Greg is as busy as ever, responding to brush, structure and vehicle fires, medical calls, crashes, floods and every other kind of emergency that calls for neighbors helping neighbors.

The year 2025 has tested him like no other. It began with some of the worst fires he’s ever seen. Then, on March 14, a tornado five football fields wide, with 140-mph winds, tore through Bakersfield, killing three people and leveling dozens of homes. As if that wasn’t enough, multiple rounds of flooding followed, each storm with a bullseye on Bakersfield.

Through it all, Greg and his small-but-mighty crew of five other volunteers kept showing up.

Greg says he’s proud to serve as this year’s parade marshal, but he’s quick to point out he doesn’t do it alone. His fire crew, his wife and his daughters all play a part.

“This [fire] crew has been with me for many years. They don’t get paid. It takes a special kind of person to do this work for free. We’ve got six of us total, counting me,” he said. “And Zaylor and the girls? They’re right in the middle of it too. If the girls can’t ride with me, they’re mad. Tera often runs with me. Kacy, she’s younger, but she’s seen a lot. Even when they don’t come with me, Zaylor usually comes by later with the girls to bring us drinks or whatever’s needed.”

When Paula Rose called about the parade theme, Greg chuckled. “That phrase, ‘Neighbors Helping Neighbors,’ that’s what we’ve always said in the fire service. Our state fire marshal has said it for years. That’s what we do. Neighboring fire departments step in and help each other, because none of us have enough people to do it alone.”

Looking ahead, though, Greg admits he worries about the future of fire departments.

“I don’t want to believe it, but volunteer fire service is a dying breed. Every time you turn the key to respond to a call, money comes out of your own pocket. The cost of living is higher, family time is tighter. It’s hard for people to do. You do miss a lot at home when those tones go off.”

Still, Greg hopes others will step up and join their local fire departments, or at the very least, show appreciation for those who do. 

He knows the challenges of the future are real, but his hope is simple: that others will keep the tradition alive, proving that neighbors helping neighbors is more than a theme. It’s a way of life.

***

Greg will be honored on the Hootin an Hollarin Main stage while the judges are tallying the votes of the 7:30 p.m. queen pageant on Thursday, Sept. 18.