By: Susan Gallagher, American Red Cross

Tom Shands is an honest-to-goodness, spur-jingling, hat-wearing cowboy — and a passionate volunteer for the American Red Cross.

After nearly 49 years of Red Cross service, he’s made his mark on this storied institution. A long-term resident of Jamestown, MO, where he and his wife, Judy, run a horse farm, Tom was among the first Disaster Response volunteers called on May 22, 2019. That day, a devastating series of storms spawned multiple tornadoes across central Missouri.

The tornado touched down about a mile southwest of Eldon, MO, carrying winds of more than 100 miles per hour. The storm cut a path through the heart of the town, tearing up trees, ripping roofs from homes, and hurling debris. 

Tom quickly set up a Red Cross shelter in the Eldon Community Center. His team provided access to food, showers, electricity, and even laundry for around 40 residents. For 19 days, Tom served as the night shelter manager, sleeping on a cot and listening to stories of loss.

“One of our most important jobs is to listen and allow individuals to get whatever has happened out,” he said. “The more they talk about their losses, the less the trauma is pinned up inside them and the easier it is to recover.” 

The Eldon tornado was not his “first rodeo.”  Tom has spent so many hours volunteering for the Red Cross that in 2014, he received his chapter’s Volunteer of the Year Award from the Red Cross Heart of Missouri Lifesavers. A veteran of dozens of Red Cross deployments, he has two vests full of pins marking his service in locations ranging from California to Georgia and Hawaii to Florida and Louisiana.

“I have my shelter vest that I call my bling vest because there are so many pins,” Tom joked. “Then I have my vest for the many fires and other disasters I have gone to when called out on a regular basis.”

Dating back to the early 1900s, Red Cross pins have become badges of honor for volunteers who have given years of service and completed important projects. Tom’s pins are placed between the American flag and his U.S. Navy Seabees pins. A Vietnam vet, Tom spent six years in the U.S. Navy and 20 years in the National Guard. 

A native of Artesia, New Mexico, Tom grew up in Granite City, IL, but he has lived in central Missouri since 1969. He spent 37 years working in various roles producing transformers at what is now the Swiss corporation Asea Brown Boveri, or ABB.      

In 1974, Tom volunteered to become the plant’s first aid and CPR instructor. He was so good at it that he was asked by the local Red Cross chapter to become a volunteer first aid instructor. He moved on to the Disaster Action Team and became certified in damage assessment and shelter management and has served as a shelter manager during several disaster relief operations.

He is known as “Cowboy Tom,” and wears his Stetson wherever he goes.