CHAFFEE -- North Scott County Ambulance District personnel had all the cheerful hospitality of first-time homeowners Saturday afternoon for anyone who stopped by their home office.

The atmosphere wasn't feigned. The facility is the district's first home office it has owned.

The building, on Highway 77 south of Chaffee, was open to the public Saturday. As visitors dropped by, district employees provided tours of the building.

District Manager Randy Everett said less than an hour into the event that probably about 40 people had already visited the facility.

Everett said district personnel actually moved into the building in November. The district entered into a $45,000 contract on the building, a two-bedroom brick house, last fall.

Since buying the residence, the district has added an ambulance garage. District personnel also volunteered their time in preparing the facility.

"This is a place where our people can design it the way they want," Everett said.

Employees, he said, did 90 percent of the work in the building's basement. The basement, with sofas and an entertainment system, offers a homey atmosphere, despite nearby lockers.

Almost all the work outside the residence was done by employees, Everett said. It included the leveling of the gravel for the district's driveway and small parking lot. Employees also put in flower beds, he said.

A small area filled with white landscaping rocks near one end of the house has the Star of Life, the international medical symbol, set off in rust-colored rocks. The star a cross of bands with a third vertical band is actually blue, but no one could find any blue rocks, said Jeff Curnell of Scott City, a full-time emergency medical technician.

"It's minus the serpent and the staff," he said. We're still trying to figure out how to put that in there."

Everett said he's proud of the district's employees.

"It shows me they take that kind of pride out in the field. It shows me a lot," he said.

The district has 22 full- and part-time employees and three ambulances. Two ambulances are kept at the home office, said Everett, while a third is kept in Scott City.

Until November 1990 the ambulance district operated out of Chaffee City Hall. But that month a fire struck, destroying an ambulance and its equipment, along with medical supplies and equipment in a storage area.

Everett said: "We knew we were going to build a building. We weren't financially ready. Then we had the fire and that forced the issue."

Following the fire, he said, the district operated in Chaffee out of a home for about 5 months and an apartment for 6 months. The important thing now, he said, is the district has a facility and the public knows its location.

Jean Hillman of Cape Girardeau, a part-time emergency medical technician, said the facility is much more comfortable than the district's other locations. She said the facility is "a place we can call home."

The location also provides easy access to any ambulance runs district personnel have to make, she said. The response time is very quick, she said.

The ambulance district has existed since 1987, said Everett. Before that, ambulance service in the county was funded out of the county's general revenue, he said.

Everett said his understanding is that ambulance service has existed in the county since the late 1960s.