FREDERICKTOWN – Standing outside the Fredericktown Community Fire District firehouse on Tuesday night, the atmosphere felt heavy. It had less to do with the intense, late-summer heat and more to do with the gravity of what had just transpired – the culmination of another summer’s worth of life lessons learned, friendships formed and tags earned.
Andrea Smith could barely keep it together.
The Fredericktown High School freshman had just completed her first year at the district’s Fire Cadet Academy program, and like her 15 fellow cadets, was honored with a certificate and a tag for doing so. Friends and family packed the firehouse to hear about the rigorous summer of classes and testing the recruits went through, multiple days each week for three months.
Smith had the chance to become friends with cadets from outside her high school. They came together with a common purpose: the desire to become firefighters. On Tuesday, she couldn’t believe the summer program was already over.
“We’re a family here. We truly are a family,” said Smith, holding back tears. “We’re all together; we work together, we learn together. They teach us more about the fire service. We know what every truck is, the ins and outs of it, what it is used for. What truck will roll up first in this type of scene, what truck will roll up second or what will roll up on a different scene.
“I’ve learned about camaraderie, friendship. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, there’s people out there with you. Just because you’re from different parts of the community doesn’t mean you’re different from anybody else. Me and a bunch of people have realized, ‘Oh, we like the same things.’ Now we’re great friends.”
Smith is part of Fredericktown’s ninth class of fire cadets and the fourth under advisor Lt. Jeremy Moss. The Fredericktown Community Fire District’s program stands alone – it is not state-funded or scout-related – and it is rare. According to Moss, it is the only program of its kind in the region (although Mansfield is starting one now) and the only one in Knox County.
“I love this night,” an emotional Moss said after the ceremony. “The fact that you’ve got kids that just don’t want to do anything and their parents don’t make them do it anymore, and these kids got so much more stuff they can do.”
The academy’s classes are taught by Moss, his assistant advisors, Lt. Kevin Suain and firefighter Jason Bostic, and other volunteers within the district. Much like the district’s mindset when it comes to volunteer firefighting, teaching the community’s youth takes a team effort. District members of all ranks teach classes and help provide instruction to the cadets, who learn the fundamentals of the fire service – everything from tapping hydrants to throwing ladders.
“You know, their passion for being a volunteer – everyone’s so full of that passion, it bleeds off onto these kids,” Moss said. “And they’ll preach it to them.”
By graduating from the program, cadets can now go on runs with the district’s firefighters, although they are not allowed inside a house unless the chief gives them permission. Typically, graduated cadets will be able to help firefighters from the truck and serve as a “workhorse” during runs, Moss said.
Fredericktown’s program sets cadets up for the state standard ‘36 card,’ which is the first step in becoming a full-fledged firefighter. Cadets can pursue further training after graduation to pursue a ‘120 card,’ which would permit a firefighter to make entry into a burning building. The highest level of education is the ‘240 card,’ which is considered a professional card and is required by most large fire stations, such as Mount Vernon and Columbus, Moss said.
It costs no money to join Fredericktown’s academy – only a 2.0 GPA, which Moss monitors by keeping in contact with the cadets’ school teachers. Other than that, there are no additional requirements, only that the cadets must be in high school to participate.
Moss said that given the program’s rarity in the region, he has taught cadets from all over the area in his four years as supervisor – from Fredericktown and Mount Vernon to Loudonville and Perrysville. He has also taught home-schooled students.
“It’s like kind of a second family, it provides emotional support,” said Jayden Hillman, a 2018 cadet graduate who is a sophomore at Shelby High School in Richland County.
While Hillman is a Fredericktown native and began the program last year as a Freddie, her family has since moved to Shelby. Hillman stuck with the program, however, making the 45-minute drive each session because of the emotional attachment she felt to the program.
“They push you the right amount so you’re meeting your potential, and they always make sure you’re meeting your full potential. And it’s really nice as a teenager, going through now in society, to have people that are always there for you,” Hillman said.
Hillman, who won the ‘Most Improved’ award at Tuesday’s ceremony, said the program has taught her “that I shouldn’t give up, and to keep going.” She pointed to a moment when she and her fellow cadets were going into a simulated search-and-rescue house fire situation and her peers motivated her to overcome adversity.
“We were on air going through the upstairs doing search-and-rescue class and I started hyperventilating because of the mask, and I was running out of air,” Hillman said. “And they helped me calm down and I realized, if you just stop for a second, you can get through whatever you’re going through.
Hillman said her experience in the program has taught her more than just fire service technique.
“You can always do something even if you think you can’t,” Hillman said. “You’ve just got to put your mind to it.”
For Angelo Tino, a sophomore at Fredericktown High School who graduated from his first year at the cadet academy on Tuesday, the experience had a deep, personal impact.
“It means so much because my dad’s a firefighter – he works in Dayton at the Air Force Base. It just means so much to me because I look up to him so much,” Tino said.
“I’ve been trying to follow in his footsteps since I can remember, and just to be able to do this means I’m getting there. Now I can go on runs, I can finally experience what he experiences and we can have more in common than we already do. It means a lot.”
Smith, Hillman and Tino all aspire to be firefighters some day, as do many of the cadets in the Fredericktown program. Moss said that in his four years as advisor, several students have graduated from high school and expressed interest in continuing their passion for firefighting.
Two graduates are active firefighters in Fredericktown’s department and many others are working to either become full-time or volunteer firefighters in the future.
Moss made it clear on Tuesday that Fredericktown’s program is a commitment. He noted that some cadets do not finish training.
“This isn’t just a, ‘Well I don’t do anything and my parents want me to do something so they dump me here.’ Because if they don’t want to be here, whether mom or dad wants them to be here, I won’t let them in the program,” Moss told the crowd. “We aren’t here to babysit, we are here to teach fundamentals to young men and women.”
The young men and women who graduated on Tuesday dedicated hours to training while also finding time for other extracurriculars. Moss said his cadets this year represented a wide range of interests, as there were athletes, FFA members and drama club students mixed into the group.
The program has grown since Moss took over in 2015. Now, he only teaches one class (whereas he previously taught all but one), as volunteers and employees within the district have become increasingly involved. Moss said that the district’s support for the program comes from the top-down.
“I feel that if I asked Chief (Scott) Mast that I needed him to teach a class, I think he would,” Moss said. “And when you can get that kind of backing from the top of your chain of command, you go right down that chain of command and everyone’s willing to help.”
That dedication is shown through Bostic, who goes out of his way to get fire gear for the cadets. When the district ran out of gear last year, Bostic contacted fire departments across the state to see if they had any old equipment the cadets could use. He then traveled hundreds of miles across the state to get the gear and bring it back to the station.
“We’ve put in a lot of sweat equity and a lot of time into this program to make it what it is and I’m very excited that it continues to grow and it continues to flourish, and that we see results from this,” Bostic told parents during the ceremony.
“We see firefighters coming from this program, we see cadets moving up through that have a genuine excitement for the fire service and interest in the fire service.”
While Moss hopes that cadet graduates volunteer at their local fire departments in the future, he also knows that the lessons they’ve learned in the firehouse go far beyond the fire service field.
“I honestly, personally, do not care if they ever do anything in the fire service when they graduate high school. I want these kids to learn respect, I want them to learn hard work, I want them to learn dedication, I want them to learn teamwork – which are all four skills that they’re going to use for the rest of their life,” Moss said.
“It doesn’t matter what they’re going to do; whether you’re a journalist, a firefighter, whether you’re a daycare provider. All four of those things are aspects you’ve gotta use. If they learn that and I don’t ever see anything negative in the newspaper about them, I’ll be smiling 20 years from now like I am right now.”
Getting a bit emotional himself, Moss reflected on the night after hugging and taking pictures with cadets. He wasn’t ready for it to be over, either.
“I’m as proud every year on this night as I was when my son graduated high school, my daughters graduated high school or when my son married his wife,” said Moss, smiling wide. “It’s just one of those special days every time.”
