FAIRMONT — On June 18, 2019, Steve Chase, a Fairmont native who now lives in the Twin Cities area, flew to California to make arrangements to transport a 1966 Bell Cobra helicopter from California to Fairmont.

Exactly one year later, that same helicopter, now completely refurbished, was mounted on a 10-foot pole as part of a permanent display at the Martin County Veterans Memorial on Winnebago Avenue in Fairmont.

When it was new, the helicopter carried a $334,000 price tag, equivalent to about $2.6 million today, but Martin County, which owns the memorial site, received the aircraft at no cost because it was a government-to-government transfer. However, the government contract required that the piece be on public display within one year, or it had to be returned.

U.S. Army veteran Tom Westcott of Fairmont saw the helicopter arrive in town on a flat-bed trailer on June 24, 2019. He had a vested interest in seeing the Cobra, having specialized in airframe repair during his service.

“It looked like a piece of junk,” he said.

The helicopter was last used to fight fires in Kern County, Calif., so the body was badly blistered. The nose section was gone. It was in rough shape.

A few days later, Westcott was contacted by the memorial committee, asking him to serve as leader of the Cobra restoration team.

“I hesitated a little bit. It had been 50 years, but then I thought, this is really an honor,” he said.

He attended the next meeting of the memorial committee to explain his plans and, hopefully, recruit some volunteers. Within 90 minutes, he had his team assembled.

Westcott and three others consistently worked on the Cobra, but additional people donated their time and talents as they could. The volunteers started out keeping time cards monitoring the hours spent working on the helicopter, but Westcott said they got a little lax on the tally at times. He estimates he alone donated about 1,350 hours to the project.

“It was a lot of work, a lot of patching,” Westcott said. “All the skids needed to be repaired. The whole nose section had to be rebuilt.”

But it was a labor of love.

The wife of one of the other volunteers said her husband left every morning, worked on the helicopter all day and came home with a big smile on his face every night.

With its blacked out windows, the finished project resembles an angry hornet, Westcott said.

“It does look mean, but it was an attack helicopter. It only held two people, but it was fast, and it was full of ammunition,” he said.

An official dedication ceremony is planned for Aug. 1. There will be a program and visiting dignitaries, including the pilots who flew the Cobra and the widow of a gunner who served on the helicopter.

Westcott plans to attend, proudly wearing his Army uniform.

“It was an honor, even to be a part of it, let alone head up the whole team,” he said.