Whitewater Fire and Rescue holds pinning ceremony

By Kim McDarison 

Some 25 fire and emergency medical personnel were sworn in Thursday as members of the Whitewater Fire and EMS Department during a badge pinning ceremony. 

Nearly 100 family members and friends arrived at the Whitewater Fire Department garage to watch the emergency personnel officially become members of the department, which transitioned from a volunteer department, operating as a separate entity from the city, to a city-run department in July of last year. 

In total, 43 fire and EMS personnel were recently sworn in and pinned, Whitewater EMS Chief Jason Dean noted, but not all of them were able to be present during Thursday’s ceremony. Those unable to attend were sworn in and pinned at different settings, he said. 

Whitewater City Councilwoman Lisa Dawsey Smith, Whitewater City Manager John Weidl, Whitewater Fire Chief Kelly Freeman and former Assistant Fire Chief Bob Gabbey each delivered remarks during the ceremony. 

Also in attendance were State Sen. Steve Nass and State Rep. Ellen Schutt, along with Whitewater Common Councilwoman Brienne Diebolt Brown and Whitewater Common Councilman Jim Allen.   

Addressing the assembled department personnel, Dawsey Smith said: ”The decision to serve your community is one deserving of honor. I am truly humbled even just to be here to witness this ceremony … Gone are the days when, to be a firefighter, you need only be willing to show up. Thank you for choosing to commit to the education and training that you have completed and that are ever-present in your ongoing service. There is someone whom I respect very much who told me once that he was just a firefighter, or something to that effect. I corrected him because that couldn’t be further from the truth. So this evening, I thank you all for being the highly trained, highly skilled, professional group that you are.” 

Dawsey Smith noted that firefighting comes with larger responsibilities than simply fighting fires, saying: “You provide the primary response that handles fires, emergency and tactical medical service, several rescue disciplines, hazardous material response, mass casualty response, community risk reduction, and severe weather responses. Please know that your service is seen, highly valued, and that while your uniform does not include a superhero cape, you are real life superheroes to many.” 

Wield, too, thanked fire and EMS personnel. 

In a followup statement offered Friday to Fort Atkinson Online, Weidl said that he wanted “most importantly,” to thank the men and women who serve on the city’s fire and EMS department, along with their families. 

“Both the nature of the job and the working conditions are a stressor on the employee and their loved ones at home who also support and suffer with us for the sake of keeping the community safe. Moving forward, we have a well-funded department with very competitive wages and highly trained staff. Response times have improved dramatically over the last several months and will continue to do so. Bottom line, we are all grateful to Chief Freeman, his leadership staff, and the men and women who are now serving 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to provide fire and emergency medical services to our community and surrounding area.” 

Within his address, Gabbey shared department history, beginning in 1871, when the village of Whitewater passed an ordinance to create the department and organized it as a volunteer operation. The department began as a “bucket brigade and in 1889 moved to hand-drawn carts,” he said. 

By 1915, motorized trucks arrived and the department moved into its first home, which, according to Gabbey, was a “small brick building located near the mill pond where members would pump water to the fire hydrants located in the business district.” 

Some 100 volunteers manned two companies within the department, which later evolved into four companies. The department moved to a location at the then-city hall in 1900, he added. 

During his remarks, Freeman spoke about more recent events, noting that between 2014 and 2015, city officials noticed that they faced “a unique situation. They essentially had two fire departments under the same roof and wanted to combine them and make one department.

“The city fire department owned the red trucks and the rural department owned the yellow trucks. Over the course of the next 18 months or so, Whitewater Fire Department, Inc., was formed in August of 2016. Whitewater Fire Department, Inc., was a standalone department that contracted with the city and surrounding townships for service.” 

New challenges faced the department in 2021, he said, citing an increased number of calls for service while available manpower supplied through paid on call staff members was decreasing. 

Other departments across the state grappled with similar sets of circumstance, he said. 

A solution was found in 2022, when the decision was made to create a municipal department which is in operation today and known as Whitewater Fire and EMS.  

Said Kelly: “We are here to appreciate what those before us have done. We are also here to build on the foundation set before us. I will ask the question to the department staff: Are we going to be a good fire department? I believe we are, but we are all going to have to continue to work hard and train to remain good. I’m not just talking about knowing the greatest life-saving techniques for prehospital care, knowing the quickest patient removal from an automobile accident or performing the most advanced and aggressive search to remove victims from a burning building. I’m also talking about working hard, training and continuing to be good, genuine people as well.”  

The move in house

City officials, offering information last July about the need to transition from an independent volunteer department to one operated by the city, noted that the move to bring fire and EMS services in house was made to help alleviate increasing difficulties with staffing faced by the department when using a paid-on-call model. 

Plans associated with bringing the department in house called for the use of a paid-on-premises model, which would improve the department’s response times and its ability to recruit manpower, Then-Whitewater Director of Finance Steve Hatton said. 

The new model would also provide department employees with health and retirement benefits and produce a schedule with more reliable hours, he added. 

As part of the transitional agreement, the Whitewater Fire Department, Inc., or WFD, Inc., which was the city’s former independent fire department, was preserved to function as a fundraising organization for the department and would maintain a fund balance to help support services and pay for capital costs associated with purchasing and replacing equipment.

The department services the city of Whitewater and the towns, in part or whole, of Whitewater, Cold Spring, Koshkonong, Richmond, Lima and Johnstown. 

An earlier story about the formation of the in-house department is here: https://fortatkinsononline.com/whitewater-council-approves-bringing-fire-department-in-house-explores-november-ballot-referendum/. 

A full list of department personnel includes: Officers, along with Freeman and Dean, Ryan Dion, Joe Uselding, Christ Christon, Andrew Beckman, Carl Strait, Kyle Strait, Dustin Tomlinson, Marshall Lewis, and Jacob Maas; full-time “Shift A” personnel: Benjamin Kastern, Alana Kolesar, Sylvia Netemeyer, and Riley Walters; “Shift B” personnel: Crystal Griffin, Amanda Kraayvanger, Sean Oflanagan, and Alexander Rohde; “Shift C” personnel: Ashley Dodd, Mikayla Fehl, Tanner Stark, and Carl Strait; payed on call firefighters: Josh Benes, Johnathan Brock, Joey Marx, Terry Phelps, and Justin Sachse; paid on call EMS: Brody Fielder, Kristen Lewis, Renee Monestero, Jenna Poole, Samantha Reher, Garrett Rieger, James Rodgers, Nikki Rowland, Shannon Schepp, Jazmine Tomlinson, DaKota White, and Steven Witt, and paid on call firefighters and EMS: Eduardo Bayona Tavara, Reichert, and Melanie Taylor.