Jackson Fire Department honors its retirees, celebrates new promotions
JACKSON, Tenn. — One first responder agency recognizes several of its team members during a special event here in the Hub City Friday evening.
The Jackson Fire Department honored their fire chiefs that are retiring while also celebrating those who received promotions.
“We’re more than a fire department. We’re more than just a group of folks that come to work everyday. We like to consider ourselves family and we like to recognize the years of service our retirees have given us and the citizens of Jackson,” said JFD Chief Don Friddle.
Russell Downen, who is being honored tonight, shares how he is feeling now that he is retiring.
“It’s a little nervous being on this side of it. For so many years I’ve always been on the other end of helping out on the honor guard, singing at the event, just watching the older guys come out but now I’m on the other end of it,” said Downen.
When he was asked to look back at his days with the fire department he shares this advice with himself ‘Don’t take things personal.’
“When I was a younger guy, you’re going up through there and it’s just natural. You want to be the guy doing it but you got to take that time to learn. I’ll talk about that briefly in my speech tonight. Don’t take things so personal, guys are there to help you,” said .
Chief Friddle shared that the Jackson Fire Department is built on tradition. And moments like these are meant to be celebrated.
“It’s a milestone to be promoted and we like to recognize them for their efforts and for their accomplishments,” said Chief Friddle.
The Jackson Fire Department is looking forward to making this one of their annual celebrations.
“We typically will host this about every 18 months or so. Our plan is, moving forward, we’re going to try to do this annually and incorporate everyone in a timely manner,” said Chief Friddle.
During this ceremony, they also honored those that were lost over the years. Chief Friddle also thanked Deborah Pewee Williams for hosting the Jackson Fire Department.
For more news in the Jackson area, click here.
