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10 Morristown Magazine The installation of the refurbished Fred the Lion in Fred Miller Park. “They had to sand blast him to get all of the old paint off and reprocess the interior and exterior of the body,” Grooms said. “He is the original lion, and he is exactly the same as before, but the only difference is before his eyes were closed and now his eyes are open which we think looks a lot better.” The country was facing a pandemic and many employees were afraid to return to work, so the company had to delay the com- pletion of Fred. With the transfer of leadership at the parks of recreation department, the club faced ano- ther delay. “It was February of 2023 and Johnny spoke with Travis Barbee, the new director of the department, and told him that we needed wa- ter for the fountain and he said ‘OK.’ It was so great that he was so willing and helpful in the process of completing this project.” After receiving the fountain and getting appro- val by the recreation department, the next step was finding a home for Fred. “We couldn’t set him at the same spot because of the walking path that is there now,” Grooms said. “We realized that we would have to put in a new water pipe for the fountain, but when we went to the department that told us they had the perfect spot for us. “They took us up to the park and showed us an old water fountain that sat outside the Bishop Goodman Pavilion that hasn’t worked in years. That saved us having to put in a water line. After that we had the place, the water and the lion; the next step was having to put the lion there.” Denton reached out to Chris Lampkin with Lampkin Construction to assist with the project. “We told him that we would work on his sche- dule so whenever he had time to put it in, he could,” Groom said. “Then one day he called Jo- hnny and told him he wanted to put it in, so we