Chick-fil-A - Ocala, FL - Fiberglass Horses on Waymarking.com

Employees and franchise manager actively support each other and their community.

Next time you’re at Chick-fil-A on College Road, check out the images on the painted horse out front. Not only do they represent a history of the eatery, there are familiar scenes of Ocala and Florida embeded in the design. The collage of artwork includes the downtown gazebo, an alligator, a Florida seascape, palm trees, and the Circle Square Cultural Center. Even the horse’s eyes reflect the scene across the street.

Several frames show the late founder of Chick-fil-A, Samuel Truett Cathy, enjoying his own food. And paintings of employees and customers are scattered throughout. Though beef is not served at this restaurant, the artwork includes a number of forlorn bovines in funny poses, such as the cows tumbling, out-of-control, down a waterfall painted on the horse’s tail. The other side of the statue has what at first appears to be a lot of brown spots like those on a cow’s hide. A closer scrutiny reveals familiar images intertwined.

Jeromy Williams, 45, has owned the College Road franchise for 13 years. To him, the horse of many colors symbolizes everything the restaurant stands for.

“It tells our story of Florida past, Ocala past and Chick-fil-A past,” Williams said. “It’s a sort of a partnership between the three. Chick-fil-A has been in Ocala for 30 years, ever since Paddock Mall opened. We’re right off the interstate, so I thought it was a perfect fit for us.”

Williams said he got the idea to purchase a horse from the Marion Cultural Alliance’s Horse Fever program. He paid nearly $4,000 for a life-size fiberglass statue from a firm in Nebraska.

Williams did not have to search very far for his artist. He caught employee Mark Bushfield doing a crayon drawing of him on a scrap of cardboard during his half-hour break.

“It was my birthday,” Williams said. “He drew me opening my shirt and inside was a Superman shirt. I said, ‘You’re a talented guy, Mark.’ I commissioned him, and he jumped on it. It was his first large-scale project. He put in so much time and energy showing how Chick-fil-A fits into people’s lives.”

Bushfield completed the horse in 18 months. Some of the artwork, such as hot air balloons and fireworks, respond to black light capability. There is also a self-portrait of Bushfield wearing his “Cow Great Thou Art” T-shirt.

“I would paint one thing and think, what would fit in here?” Bushfield said. “Everything fits together like a puzzle. It’s called tessellation. Every spot looks like something, just like when you look at a cloud and see a duck. It’s just a lot of whimsy.”

Bushfield credited Ocala artist Peggy Watts for technical advice and for telling him what kind of oils to use. She also lent him a couple of dollies so he could move the horse around.

When the project was finished, ABC Body Shop put a clear coat sealer on the horse, Williams said.

“He heard what we were doing and he said ‘No charge,’” Williams said of the shop owner.

Artwork is merely a sideline for Bushfield, who is 55. An ordained minister, he has been a youth pastor, a chaplain in the Army, a pastor of a church in upstate New York and a missionary with Youth With A Mission. As a member of Ministry in Action, he now visits Lowell Prison and also participates in a Victim Impact outreach.

Bushfield considers his job at Chick-fil-A another type of ministry. An aficionado of magic tricks, he pulls packs of ketchup out of thin air and entertains wide-eyed children with squeaky toys.

“I’ve been a cashier and I’ve worked in the lobby. When I was working in the lobby I called myself a lobbyist,” he said with a chuckle.

Despite Bushfield’s easygoing nature, he has faced several challenges over the last few years. When his $25 thrift store bicycle was stolen, his co-workers pitched in and bought him a new one. Then they learned a little more about him and decided to go step one better.

“Mark has a daughter in medical school and he has chosen to funnel a lot of his funds to help her and support her, so much so that he was riding a bicycle to work,” Williams said. “Our employees think so much of Mark and appreciate what he brings to the table, so we all pitched in and bought him a scooter. We paid the insurance on it and filled it up with gas. We had all the employees out front when he finished his shift and he went out and got on his scooter.”

Another employee, Liamaria Poro, was the catalyst behind it, Williams said.

“To me, so much of Chick-fil-A is relational,” he said. “We don’t do it for everybody, but if we see a need and it’s something we can fix, we get our employees to take over. It’s amazing what our folks do for one another. God’s blessed us with so much.”

During the holidays, Williams, a licensed pilot, awards his employees with nighttime flights in his Cessna 182. He flies them over Ocala and The Villages and they get a birds-eye view of the Christmas lights.

“A lot of them have never been in a small airplane,” Williams said. “We talk about an 8,000-foot perspective on life and setting goals. The first thing we fly over is our Chick-fil-A restaurant. It’s only a dot, but we talk about how impactful that dot can be to Marion County and how much we impact people’s lives.”

Every month, Williams takes eight employees for a ride in his F150 Harley-Davidson limousine. They stop to eat at a local restaurant, then get ice cream for dessert. Called the Magnificent Eight, the project is a substitute for the usual employee of the month, he said.

Williams’ generosity goes beyond the four walls of his restaurant. This year, he provided $6,000 Chick-fil-A Leader Academy curriculums to Meadowbrook Academy and First Assembly of God Christian School. The curriculum instills servant leadership in teenagers and encourages them to apply what they learn by working with a charity.

In 2016, Williams’ nomination of Jacksonville-based Christ’s Starfish received a $75,000 grant from the Chick-fil-A Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the parent company. The charity was a project of Meadowbrook Academy’s Leader Academy teens.

Last Monday, the Ocala Palms Worship Community gave a $500 check to Williams for Christ’s Starfish. Then, on Tuesday, Williams presented a check for $50,000 to Kids Central, his 2017 nominee for the award. The students at First Assembly Christian School worked with Kids Central through their Leader Academy curriculum. Other schools that have used the curriculum are West Port High School and Trinity Catholic, Williams said.

In addition to its primary charity, Christ’s Starfish, the College Road restaurant has been involved in T-shirts for Turkeys, the Back to School backpack program and an annual Christmas toy drive.

Physical Address: 3445 SW College Road Ocala, FL USA 34474 Web site: [Web Link] Background Story: See the text above which was published in the "Ocala Star Banner" newspaper, 19 November 2017. Horses Name: Not listed

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