The Smithville Volunteer Fire Department held their annual appreciation dinner last Friday evening, recognizing some of the department’s outstanding and upcoming members on the department’s 84th year of service to the community. The event was postponed last year due to COVID, but was held this year in person.
Dalton Roberts was awarded the “Robert Eller Award” during the event, which was held at the Smithville First Baptist Church Life Enrichment Center. The award was presented to Roberts by Smithville Fire Chief Charlie Parker for attending the most incidents calls, trainings, workings, and meetings. The award is in honor of the late Robert Eller, who served with the department, including as assistant chief, for 64 years. Roberts is an eight-year member of Smithville Fire, and had been a volunteer for over six years before he was hired as the department’s second full time paid firefighter in October 2020.
The “Rookie of the Year Award,” was presented to Cole Wright. The award is given based on attitude, and attendance to incidents, trainings, workings, and meetings. Wright had attended 243 hours last year serving the department.
Smithville Fire’s Training Award was presented to Dakota Nokes, who participated in the most training hours for the department in 2021. Nokes logged in with 153 hours of training.
During the event, Smithville Fire Captain Jeff Wright presented three rookie firefighters with their badges after completing the required training. Cole Wright and Tyler Cantrell were given badges for completing LIVE Burn training and Rookie School, while Dakota Nokes was given a badge for his 2020 rookie training.
Chief Parker also recognized the late Wallace Caldwell, a long-time member of the department who passed away in November. Caldwell served as the Chaplain for the department. “He was more that just our Chaplain, he was an instructor, a friend, and a firefighter. We greatly miss him,” said Chief Parker.
Chief Parker also highlighted some of the department’s accomplishments over the past year including the newly formed Swift Water Rescue Task Force, training in vehicle extrication, and extensive rope training. Parker also commented on probably the largest Smithville Christmas Parade ever held, as well as thanking the Tennessee General Assembly for creating a $600 stipend for volunteer fire departments to reimburse for trainings.
“In 2021 we had a total of 186 incidents, and also offered 56 training events both live and online, and through EMS for our medical certification. We also had 23 workings and meetings throughout the year,” Chief Parker said. “All of that together, we had 265 events we did throughout this past year.”
“Training is a big component of the fire service, and you can tell how good a fire department is by their commitment and dedication they gave to training. That’s where you can tell you have a good quality department, and I think we have that here. Our guys and gals continually train to hone their skills and techniques and to maintain their certification. This past year our 24 firefighters logged in 1,580 hours of training,” Chief Parker said.
“I have to give a big thanks to our Captain Jeff Wright,” Parker continued. “He is our training officer and it’s under his leadership. He has been a huge part in facilitating a lot of those trainings, from the online stuff to the live training we do.”
“We are very fortunate that we have people like Jeff, who also works for the Murfreesboro Fire Department, Hoyte Hale, who works for DeKalb EMS, and now even Seth Wright, who works for the Murfreesboro Fire Department. These guys are able to go to their regular everyday jobs. They receive other training, and do hours and hours of training, and bring that back to everybody else,” Parker explained.
“If you add all of it together, the workings, trainings, and meetings, not even counting the fire calls, we’ve had almost 2,600 hours that these people put into the Smithville Fire Department. This is truly amazing. This is on top of their regular jobs,” said Chief Parker.
The event ended with the recognition of the firefighters and their time of service with the department.
Each member was presented with a certificate including Cole Wright - less than 1 year, Tyler Cantrell - 1 year, Dakota Nokes - 2 years, Kim Johnson - 6 years, Seth Wright - 6 years, Dalton Roberts - 8 years, Becky Atnip - 9 years, Cory Killian - 11 years, Glen Lattimore - 14 years, Stephanee Wright - 16 years, Gary Johnson - 17 years, Lieutenant John Poss - 32 years, Captain Jeff Wright - 35 years, Deputy Chief Hoyte Hale - 37 years, Lieutenant Donnie Cantrell - 42 years, Lieutenant Danny Poss - 42 years, and Chief Charlie Parker - 42 years including 30 years as Chief.
Other members of the department unable to attend the dinner Friday night are Wink Brown, Randall Hunt, Bradley Johnson, Dillon Hicks, C.J. Tramel, Kayla Johnson, Jeff Prisock, and Andrew Cooper.
