Smithville volunteer firefighter and Deputy Chief Hoyte Hale received the “Robert Eller Highest Attendance Award” Monday night during an appreciation dinner for city firefighters at Ace’s Steakhouse, Seafood and Italian Restaurant downtown.
The award was presented to Hale by Smithville Fire Chief Charlie Parker. Hale earned this award named in honor of the late Robert Eller, who served the Smithville Fire Department as a member and assistant chief for 64 years until his death in 2009. Hale has won this award seven times since it was established.
Deputy Chief Hale, 38-year veteran of the department, responded to 179 incidents, the most of anyone during the year including trainings, workings, and meetings in addition to incidents. Others in the running for the award were Captain Donnie Cantrell who responded to 174 incidents and Captain Danny Poss and Captain John Poss each with 134 incident responses.
Four longtime leaders of the department received new officer badges marking their promotions which were formally announced last October. With the new rankings Former Captain Jeff Wright is now Assistant Chief and former Lieutenants Danny Poss, Donnie Cantrell, and John Poss have been promoted to Captains. Their badges were pinned on them during the dinner Monday night by their spouses Nicole Wright, Pamela Poss (Danny’s wife), Pat Cantrell, and Lori Poss (John’s wife).
Dalton Roberts, one of the department’s three full-time paid fighters employed by the city, received a Training Award for logging the most training hours during 2022 at 141 hours. Roberts had been a volunteer member of the department for over six years when he was hired as the city’s second full-time paid firefighter in October 2020, eight years after Chief Parker, now a 43-year veteran firefighter, was employed as the city’s first paid full-timer in the fire department. Glenn Lattimore, who has been with the city fire department for 15 years, became a full timer last September after the city funded the third position.
Another training award was presented to a strictly volunteer city firefighter and Captain John Poss received the honor having put in 128 hours of training during the year 2022.
According to Chief Parker, the Smithville Fire Department’s 22 firefighters combined logged a total of 1,331 training hours participating in 44 training events throughout the year which included fire, rescue, medical, hazardous materials awareness and operations training along with specialty events like basic and advanced swift water training classes. “We also have five members who are in the process of going through their fire commission practical and testing for professional firefighter certification,” said Chief Parker.
Twelve firefighters were recognized who qualified for training incentive pay, a bonus pay program offered by the state of Tennessee. “We had 12 firefighters who qualified for this. That is 30 hours of training for volunteers and 40 hours of training for the full-time people. We had 12 people who qualified for that this year. We offer as incentive pay 63 hours of training,” said Chief Parker.
Those firefighters and the number of hours they put in to qualify for the incentive pay program are as follows: Chief Charlie Parker- 137 hours, Tyler Cantrell-97 hours, Deputy Chief Hoyte Hale-92 hours, Glen Lattimore-87 hours, Bradley Johnson-74 hours, Captain Donnie Cantrell-69 hours, Assistant Chief Jeff Wright-68 hours, Gary Johnson-63 hours, Captain Danny Poss-59 hours, Wink Brown-51 hours, Seth Wright-48 hours, and Kim Johnson-39 hours.
“As these numbers reflect, these firefighters didn’t just do the minimum training. They went well above what is required of them and I want to thank Assistant Chief Jeff Wright. He has been very instrumental in helping put all this training together. He and I do some of the training, but we also contract with the Tennessee Fire & Codes Academy who come in and do several classes with us. We do some classes in house. We do classes and training in addition to what the fire academy comes in and does. Remember all this training is in addition to everything else that we do including incident responses, coming to all the meetings, workings, and other things. This really shows the dedication these men and women have to our fire department,” said Chief Parker.
The Chief singled out two longtime officers and department leaders for their contributions. “We are so lucky to have our Deputy Fire Chief Hoyte Hale. He brings so much to the table from EMS (where he is director) and the years of training and knowledge he has along with Assistant Chief Jeff Wright, who works at the Murfreesboro Fire Department. He also adds his years of knowledge and experience to our department. Others like Seth and Cole Wright who work elsewhere have amassed a lot of training and experience which they share with this department. Each and every one of our firefighters and not just the ones I have mentioned here brings a different skill set to our department,” said Chief Parker.
Members of the department recognized and presented certificates for their years of service are as follows:
Tyler Cantrell-2 years, Mark Riggsbee (Auxiliary)- 2 years, Cole Wright- 2 years, Dakota Nokes-3 years, Kayla Johnson (Auxiliary)-4 years, Andrew Cooper-4 years, Dillon Hicks-5 years, Seth Wright-7 years, Kim Johnson-7 years, Dalton Roberts-9 years, Bradley Johnson- 9 years, Shawn Jacobs (Auxiliary)-10 years, Becky Atnip- 10 years, Cory Killian-12 years, Glen Lattimore-15 years, Stephanee Wright-17 years, James R. Hunt-18 years, Gary Johnson-18 years, William (Wink) Brown-25 years, Greg Bess (Photographer)-28 years, Captain John Poss-32 years, Assistant Chief Jeff Wright-37 years, Deputy Chief Hoyte Hale-38 years, Captain Donnie Cantrell-43 years, Captain Danny Poss-43 years, and Chief Charlie Parker-43 years including 31 years as Chief.
