CRAWFORD, TX — This year the White House Press Corps covering President George Bush’s 30-day August working vacation in Crawford found themselves in a “more comfortable setting than last year,” according to a Tempstar news release. The reason? Two 20-ton Tempstar commercial air conditioners.

In the past, the Crawford Elementary School gymnasium was usually used for press conferences, but if the weather was too hot, the conferences were held outside. Thanks to the new A/C system, the conferences can now be comfortably staged indoors during the hottest days of August.

Local contractor Abel Service Co. won the bid to install air conditioning in the school’s gym. Franklin “Bud” Abel, owner of Abel Service, finished installing the Tempstar air conditioners on August 1. When Abel turned the system on at 3:00 p.m., the temperature in the gym was 92 degrees F. Forty minutes later, it was 72 degrees.

Abel’s challenge was to install the system in a short period of time and without using the gym’s roof, which wouldn’t support the weight of the workers or equipment. He won the bid in mid-July and wound up installing one unit at one end of the facility and the other unit at the other end.

“The airflow is great,” he said in the news release. “You can feel the cool air across the gym.”

Publication date: 10/21/2002