North Ridgeville man finds creative way to honor warriors through wood

NORTH RIDGEVILLE — When he's not busing North Ridgeville students to and from schools or working as a part-time police officer with the Glenmont Police Department in Holmes County, Wayne Fox can often be found in his garage. Since May 2019, that garage has become somewhat of a second home inside a home for Fox. It was around then that his passion and skill for woodworking began receiving widespread attention on social media. In June last year, he officially turned Fox's Fired-Up Flags and Furniture into a business. Fox works with and designs a wide variety of wood products but specializes in benches, signs, tables and, perhaps his most popular product, wooden flags. The flags are typically a 36-by-19.5-inch and ¾-inch thick piece of word with the American flag carved and burned into the wood. Other sizes are also available and the flags can be designed to be "waving" with a different carving of the wood. Depending on the size and design of the flag, Fox said his pieces start at about $100. Fox's work with flags goes back to November 2018. A couple of months earlier, he was looking for a Christmas gift for his father and found a similar product online for $150. "I can do something for less than that," Fox said at the time. And do it himself, he did, despite the fact that it had been nearly 40 years since he last did any woodworking. "At this point, the last thing that I had made woodworking-wise was in sixth grade back in the early '80s," Fox said. "(My wife) said, 'If this fails, we're not going to have the money to buy anyone anything.' At the time, I couldn't even walk into my garage so I did all of the carving and burning and the staining in the kitchen. "About three days in, I had both of the flags all spread out — all 26 stripes all across the whole kitchen and dining room. She was walking through and it must have been the colors or something that grabbed but she stopped and said, 'Can you make my mom one, too?'" When the flag was finished, he decided to show off his work on Facebook. That was where it all started. Over the coming months, he began receiving requests from local community members to make those flags for birthdays and other holidays. At one point, he said he received a request from a North Ridgeville councilwoman asking him to make a flag for a school fundraiser. Fox said though he has a website, www.firedupflags.com, he said his main source of conducting business is his Facebook page, titled Fox's Fired-Up Flags and Furniture. He doesn't post often, he said, due to the mass influx of orders that come in when he shows off a finished product, but he checks in every so often to remind his followers he's still around. Since Fox began making products regularly nearly two years ago, he said he's made just over 630 pieces, with the most popular remaining his flags. Each product is numbered and signed. "I didn't get into this for the money," Fox said. "I got into this because it's something I enjoy doing, I like being able to tell your story and the reason you want your flag. I've always wanted to be a writer but I've never had that reason to write. This is where I get all of that (creativity)." The most recent story he's gotten to tell is that of an Air Force staff sergeant who now needs to retire early due to developing an autoimmune disease. At the time of writing, the flag had still not been delivered to the man and because Fox wanted to keep it a surprise, his name was not given. Fox was told about the man by his neighbor, Chris Salazar, a fellow Air Force member who works as a special warfare recruiter for Northern Ohio. "Due to his autoimmune disease he can no longer serve, so he has to be medically retired from the Air Force," Salazar said. "I believe he's been in the Air Force between eight and nine years now.'' Last week, Salazar took a trip to West Virginia for a weekly meeting with his boss and who was, in turn, going to present it to the retiring soldier, currently doing the same job as Salazar stationed in Buffalo, New York, on the day of his retirement. Salazar talked about the man, a South Carolina native, who has been a part of his flight (group) for the last six months. "Wayne actually built a coffee table for me about six or seven months ago and we keep in touch," Salazar said. "The type of artwork and the flags that Wayne does would be a good going away gift. To signify his service in the Air Force and to say thank you." After telling Fox about the man's story, Salazar said he told him the project was on his "must-do" list and had it done in less than a week. Over the nearly two years he's known Fox, Salazar said this is totally emblematic of the type of person he is. "He's always trying to honor anybody from law enforcement and firefighters to military," Salazar said. "He just does fantastic work for the flags and how he's able to present them. That time and effort to drop everything that he had previously just to knock out a going-away gift for a military veteran speaks volumes on Wayne's character and the types of things he's able to do for the community." As great as telling stories like this is for Fox, equally as rewarding is the response he's gotten from the community and the recipients of his work. In his time making flags and other commemorative products, he said he has yet to receive any negative feedback and has often brought people to tears. "I'm always afraid to hand it over to you because I'm waiting for that bad response for some reason," Fox said. "You're your own worst critic. It's such a blessing on how it's been steamrolling for me." Contact reporter Jack Kopanski at (330) 721-4063 or jkopanski@medina-gazette.com.