Josephine Smith, 34, a Mastic native who said she always wanted to follow in her dad's footsteps, was one of 280 men and women to graduate Tuesday from the FDNY academy at a ceremony in Brooklyn.
Smith, whose father Kevin Smith was a member of HazMat 1 in Manhattan, is the first woman to join the FDNY after a parent died in the line of duty, a department spokesman said.
"Today I'm proud, happy, excited -- and sad that my father couldn't be here," Smith told reporters after the ceremony, which was attended by Mayor Bill de Blasio. "I have wanted to do this for as long as I can remember. I always told my father I'd work with him one day."
Kevin Smith, who also volunteered with the East Farmingdale and Mastic fire departments, was last heard from on Sept. 11, 2001 on the 11th floor of the ill-fated south tower.
His widow, Jerri Smith, who is Josephine's stepmother, said five of the couple's eight combined children have built careers in the military or as firefighters and police officers.
"It was very emotional because I just wish her father could have been here to see her do it. He was so proud of her always, but he would have been very proud of this," Jerri Smith, of Mastic, said Tuesday night after attending the ceremony.
Josephine Smith now lives in Kew Gardens, Queens, Jerri Smith said, and had taken the fire department entry test at least two times before.
"I look at her -- she looks so much like her father, and I know how important this was to her," she said. "I'm just so thrilled and emotional about that -- she finally did what she set out to do. She was a champ."
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