Leeper Native T-Rex Goes Viral Plowing Snow

Ron Wilshire

Ron Wilshire

Published January 9, 2018 5:50 am
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ERIE, Pa. (EYT) — A video of Leeper native Steven Moore dressed in a T-Rex costume snow plowing the parking lot of the Fairfield Hose Company Volunteer Fire Department in Harborcreek Township on New Year’s Day recently went viral on Facebook with thousands and thousands of views.

(Video by Sara Paolello.)

Moore, a volunteer fireman and welder at GE Transportation in Erie, was at his home and went out on his ATV to plow snow, but then he decided to try something fun. 

Moore’s wife Valerie had already purchase T-Rex costumes for the entire family of five.  They also posed as a family of dinosaurs for their 2017 Christmas card. Moore thought it would be fun to don the T-Rex costume to handle the snow.

“My daughter Amber still likes to dress up in the costume all of the time, so I figured I would put on mine and make a few laps around the neighborhood,” said Moore.

“(After) I made a few laps around my neighborhood in the subdivision, I decided to go to the fire hall and plow out the doors in the front and bays.  People started pulling over and taking pictures, honking their horns, and having a good old time with it. Someone caught the episode on video.”

One of the people viewing the video was fire chief Jim Hawryliw.

“He’s a funny guy,” Hawryliw said about Moore. “I think he just wanted to lighten the mood from the fact we had five feet of snowfall. I’m surprised (at the reaction it has received), but I’m not surprised. Everybody was so uptight about the snow that I think they were like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s a dinosaur on a four-wheeler in the snow.’ It’s not something you see every day.”

Moore got some ribbing from the “guys” down at the fire hall where he is known as Mr. T-Rex and Dino Man.  

“I owe the guys a case of beer now because anybody that makes the newspaper up here has to buy the department a case of beer,” explains Moore.

He has been a member of the Fairfield Department for the last six years, but he’s been a volunteer for all of his life.

“I love helping people, and I’ve done it my whole life since I was 16.  It was just how I was raised. I remember my dad, Tink Moore, taking me into the Farmington Township Volunteer Fire Department.  I got my start in Clarion County, and it gave me the basics—they’re a lot more extreme up here.”

“We have three fire departments in my township.  Both of the other two cover I-90, and we’re close to the lake. We cover the lakeshore, so (we) do water rescue and have jet skis that we can go out and rescue people.”

His wife supported his turn as a snow fighting dinosaur but thinks it’s funny.  His daughters loved it, thinking their dad is now famous.

Would he do it again?

“As much attention as it garnered, I guess I should.”

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