Aug. 30--ELLETTSVILLE -- Thursday's retirement of the Ellettsville Fire Department's longtime chief means they will be scraping the name "James R. Davis" off the glass window at the entryway to the town fire station.
That would be Jim Bob Davis to anyone who knows the man who started off as a volunteer firefighter in 1971 and ended up staying around 42 years.
During a five-hour reception at fire headquarters on Ind. 46 Thursday, more than 200 people congratulated, hugged and reminisced with Davis about the good and bad times.
He was presented with a golden Meritorious Service Medal from the state, a framed certificate from the State Fire Marshal's Office citing his many years of service and a proclamation of thanks from the Monroe County commissioners.
"More than all of this, Jim Davis is a good man," Commissioner Patrick Stoffers said. "A man I am proud to call my friend."
Flashing on screens around the room were pictures from his career: waving in a parade, his toddler grandson on his lap wearing a mini firefighters' hat, using extrication equipment to cut a victim from a car smashed in a traffic accident. One captured Davis covered with mud and cow manure after he fell off the back of a firetruck. Another shows him dousing flames at one of the first fires he ever responded to, at the home of Tony Terrell on Red Hill Road.
"It burned down," the fire chief recalled.
Dozens of photographs were snapped during the retirement party. One featured Davis surrounded by four women who were among the first females to work for the town's ambulance service, run out of the fire station.
Susie Berwick started in 1985, Joyce Burns in 1986, Kelly Mullis in 1987 and Lisa Jenkins in 1988. They joked and kidded their old boss, and shed some tears -- from laughing.
Davis will trade his officer's uniform and turn-out gear for work boots and overalls. Today, he plans to climb into the air-conditioned cab of his Massey-Ferguson 6170 tractor and get some hay baled on his farm.
When cold weather sets in, look for him at his pole barn, restoring a 1965 Corvair he has been working on for years.
"It's going to get done," he vowed.
Davis joined the fire department back in 1971 after being recruited by a high school classmate he ran into at the Monroe County Fair. The decorated Vietnam War veteran had been back home in Ellettsville two years and was looking for a way to occupy himself.
"He said it only took two or three hours a month of your time. Back then, they had 110 calls a year," Davis said. "Now, it's 1,900."
Copyright 2013 - Herald-Times, Bloomington, Ind.
