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County will honor fallen firefighters |
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Monday, 26 January 2009 |
Saline County’s historic courthouse in Downtown Benton is about to add to its history.
Plans are under way to showcase a memorial honoring fallen firefighters at the corner of North Main and West Conway streets on the courthouse square.
“We want to honor our fellow firefighters who have been killed in the line of duty,” said Gil Carpenter, president of the local firefighters association.
Carpenter also is an engineer with the Benton Fire Department and a volunteer captain with the Salem Fire Department.
“Turtle Creek Volunteer Fire Department bought a bronze firefighter sculpture and came to the Saline County Firefighters Associa-tion with the idea of having a memorial,” Carpenter said.
The organization then presented the memorial idea to County Judge Lanny Fite, who is in charge of county buildings. He embraced the idea and then work began to have the plans approved by the state heritage society.
“We had to get approval because the courthouse is registered by the state as a historic structure,” Fite said.
The $10,000 project will be funded mostly by the firefighters association and will begin soon, Carpenter said. A groundbreaking ceremony will be announced in Febru-ary and donations are “happily and graciously” accepted through any Saline Coun-ty fire department, he said.
The county will do the groundwork, he said.
Plaques just behind the 6-foot-tall bronze statue will honor the memory of three fallen Saline County firefighters.
“We know of three, and we hope we never have to add one,” Carpenter said.
Those to be memorialized include Chester Woodall, who died in the line of duty in 1970. Woodall was then-Benton fire chief and the main station is named after him. The other two are Tull volunteer Fire Chief Ken Mitchell, who died fall 2005; and Paul Baker of the Turtle Creek Fire Department, who died summer 2007.
Paving bricks will be sold for $50 apiece, Carpenter said, noting they are for active, retired or deceased firefighters associated with any one of the 21 fire departments in the county. He said there are about 450 paid and volunteer firefighters in the county.
“Nationwide, more than 100 firefighters are killed in the line of duty every year,” Carpenter said. “I’ve been to three funerals and I hope I never have to go to another one.”
In 2002, Carpenter joined other local firefighters along with more than 100,000 from around the country for a march in New York City honoring the fallen firefighters of 9/11. “I still get chill bumps thinking about it,” he said.
The goal is to have the Saline County memorial constructed by summer, Carpenter said.
Fite said the memorial will “be a nice addition to the courthouse and the Veterans Memorial on the opposite corner, and it will a place for firefighters and their loved ones to come and remember and honor those who have come before them.”
Carpenter added, “A lot of people lay their lives on the line every day and this is our way of honoring them.”
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