Cherokee County Fire And Emergency Services: Twenty-Nine Graduate From Firefighter Recruit School

Press release from the Cherokee County Fire and Emergency Services:

March 22, 2021

Twenty-nine new fire recruits graduated from firefighter recruit school during ceremonies held last Friday night at the Woodstock First Baptist Church. The event began with a welcome from Battalion Chief of Training, Scott Deal, followed by the invocation by Fire Chaplain, Johnny Weaver. The Cherokee County Fire Honor Guard came to the stage for the presentation of colors and the singing of the national anthem was performed by Darrek Cornelison. Chief Deal returned to the podium to introduce a slideshow of the recruit’s experiences during training. This year’s recruit class had two separate companies.  Capt. Daniel Carder came forward and introduced 60-year-old fire recruit, George Mason, who spoke on behalf of Company 1, followed by Lt. Chris Martin who introduced recruit, Johnathan Futch, who spoke on behalf of Company 2. Jim Laughlin and Kristina Wigington, instructors for the recruit class, came next to present four special achievement awards that were presented to three members of this year’s class. The W. Clark Waters' Jr. Honor Graduate Award was presented to David Seay. The award was named on behalf of Clark Waters, a Cherokee County firefighter, who passed away in 2004. The recipient of the Pinnacle Award for striving to "reach the top" due to dedication and hard-work in the firefighter recruit school class was presented to Joel Saunders. The Star of Life Award, in honor of Dr. Jill Mabley, who is currently the Medical Director for the fire department, was presented to Denver Ice.  David Seay was also the recipient of this year’s Academic Award. After the awards presentation, Harry Johnston, Chairman of the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners, came forward to say a few words. Assistant Fire Chief, Eddie Robinson, came to the podium and congratulated the new recruits and welcomed them to the Cherokee County Fire family. Cherokee County Fire Chief, Tim Prather, came next to encourage the recruits to keep their faith first, family second and their work third in order to have a successful life and career.  Prather then asked the recruits to stand for the firefighter oath followed by the presentation of their certificates of completion. Those recruits receiving certificates were: Wilfred Acosta, David Beasley, Anna Bowyer, Roderick Chumbley, Darrion Cook, Andrew Davenport, Nathan Foye, Jacob Franklin, Brice Futch, Maxwell Garcia, Trevor Gobbel, Leighton Graham, Logan Hart, Benjamin Huthchinson, Denver Ice, Matthew Johnson, Stacey Johnson, Troy Kizer, William Klein, George Mason, Brody Miller, Eli Muse, Hunter Patterson, Matthew Reilly, Joel Saunders, David Seay, Ryan Stancil, Lyle Tobin and Douglas Whiddon. Congratulations to the new graduates on a job well done!

This press release was produced by the Cherokee County Fire and Emergency Services. The views expressed here are the author’s own.