The department publicly revealed a new design adorning the side of the engine of its firetruck at Eastern Hancock High School Friday. Three Eastern Hancock art students, Karlie Gaylord, Chloe Holzhausen and Whitney Wilkinson, crafted and submitted the illustration after the fire department contacted the school for design ideas, said Amanda Graupner, Eastern Hancock High School’s art teacher.
The students’ design pictures a steel-eyed lion ripping through the truck’s metal with crossed fire axes covering a tattered American flag in the background. The lion wears a red hat labeled “Charlottesville 461,” and the words, “Beast of the East,” are scrawled underneath the design.