NEWS ITEMS AT OR ABOUT GERMAN TOWNSHIP
Hurrican Ike!
On September 14, Hurricane Ike blew into town. Winds as high as 60mph were reported. German Fire had 14 runs to check on down fires and roads blocked by wires. One incident was saved in pictures.
A birthday party for Zachary Fisher was held at German Fire Department and it turned into private tour of company 9. Go to the pictures from link below.
Chief Buckman received a copy of an email from German Township resident, Ed Small, who had some thoughts about eliminating the all township offices in Indiana. We pass along his email for your consideration.
From:
Ed Small [mailto:ed.small]
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008
11:02 AM
To:
mr.philco@.com
Cc: Becker, Vaneta; Stewart III,
Mizell; Buckman, John
Subject: Townships
Mr. Ramirez ....
I favor the idea of the elimination of the Township portion of County
government, BUT there are areas which I STRONGLY FAVOR the Township concept.
Let me explain:
1.
I LIKE our
2. For
most all of us OVER 65, the
The Township Offices are
truly a NICE CONVENIENCE!
HOWEVER, other than our
1. Most of
our local banks have offices located in and out of the city limits. They
could employ specialized personnel to handle most of the problems that face the
"out of the city residents." In addition, the Banks could BID for the
business, thus INCREASING their potential customer base, and thus get more
business. I feel sure that Old National Bank gets new customers because
they collect Property Taxes twice a year.
2. Check lists for
"
On the website, the user would get the Listing that they checked, then: HOW
TO GET TO WHERE THEY WANT TO GO ... FOR THAT SERVICE,with instructions as a
LISTING: 1,2,3,4, ETC. .... NOT in paragraph form! Use the KISS system:
"Keep It Simple Sam!"
3.
In addition, with new technology, just like Old National out on First Avenue,
the two way TV will someday become a reality for County Government, where
the user will be talking to a "person" rather than a blank screen, and not
having to type in the answers ... rather it will be the equivalent of an 800
number, and the ordeal of Websites of Government will be greatly simplified.
*****************************
Mr. Ramirez, I hope that this gives you some ideas ... thank you for your
editorial. I hope that this email will be beneficial to you. If you,
or any of the Cc group have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
The
VERY BEST to ALL of you.
Most sincerely,
Ed Small
Resident of
Lt. Tamara Esche competes
at
Miss Indiana Contest
In February, Lt. Tamara Esche was crowned as Miss Ohio Valley and qualified to compete in the Miss Indiana 2008 contest that is being held in June.
The Evansville Courier & Press ran a nice article about her quest for the state title as Miss Indiana.(http://www.courierpress.com/news/2008/feb/06/not-averagefirefighter/) Tamara has gone through the priliminaries on June 19 and 20th. She sent a couple of shots from 19th and promises more. She is hopeful for a title but as she said, "of course I really want to make the finals, but no matter what, I know I did everything that I could possibly do, and I feel great about that."
Pictues from C&P
GOOD LUCKY, TAMARA!
Junior Fire Wardens from Cynthia Heights, Resurrection and St. Joseph Schools attend annual picnic at German Fire Dept.
Chief John M. Buckman III receives Governor's Award
In
the April edition of The IDHS Hoosier Responder Newsletter, Executive Director
Joe Wainscott announced members of IDHS team had been selected to receive one of
this year's Governor's Awards for outstanding service and contributions to the
State of Indiana and IDHS. Chief Buckman, who is Chief Indiana Firefighter
Training System, was recognized as an individual award recipient. "For the past
three years he has worked diligently to develop and implement the first state
funded and supported fire training system in Indiana.
John established a local fire training committee in all ten Homeland Security
districts, helped each district complete its training needs, assessments, and
plans, identify and select a fiscal agent for each district, identify and select
a district training hub, and establish an effective budget. He has aided the
District Fire Training Committee in the delivery of National Fire Academy
courses across the state through the use of NFA grant funds to firefighters
around the state. He has also successfully promoted the NFA's Indiana Weekend,
more than doubling the number of Indiana firefighters participating within just
two years. Although, Indiana had a statute which outlined the mandatory level of
training required for an individual to become a firefighter, no uniform
curriculum for this training had been developed. This led to very poor test
results by the new trainees.
Buckman organized a team of subject matter experts, developed a curriculum with
learning objectives and practical skill expectations and created a comprehensive
instructor guide, student manual, power point presentation, and other support
materials. The instructional materials have now been supplied to more than 1000
fire instructors and nearly 4000 students in the past two years, resulting in a
15% increase in test scores for mandatory fire test.
Today, he continues to lead several other fire training initiatives including
Fire Chief Leadership Seminars, Firefighter Safety Initiatives, Courage To Be
Safe Program, Instructor In-Service Seminars, Recruiting and Retaining Volunteer
Firefighter Programs, and Hazardous Materials and Technical Rescue Training
Initiatives."
As his director said, take a few moments to congratulate him and thank him for a
well done job.
Annual Awards Banquet
On Sunday February 17, German Fire Department held its annual Awards Banquet. The banquet was held at the FOP Camp on Happe Rd. The turnout was pretty good considering the recent weather and the short notice. The food was great thanks to Lisa Eickchoff and her crew of Tim, Brittney, Don Neel, Mike Plumlee and Ben Woodward. A talk about reporting incidents to the state offices was given by Gary Robinson,Indiana Office of Homeland Security Grants and Risk Manager. The Reverent Steve Walker gave a talk on being a care giving servant.
Service awards were given out to the following:
- One year of service pins
- Scott Laugel
- Joey O'Neal
- Dustin Botzum
- Matt Molinet
- David Guffy
- Josh Burns
- Kyle Alexander
- Jamie Estham
- Darrell Eastham
- Five year pins
- Mike Plumlee
- James Marquis
- Lieuteant Tamara Esche
- Ten Year pin
- Captain Cindy Gries
- Nick Raber
Other awards
- Highest number of runs made in 2007
- Lester Garrett
- Assistant Chief David Bretz
- Lieutenant Nathan Beach
-
Highest training hours for 2007
- Captain David Magary
- Division Chief Nick Adams
- Darrell Eastham
Volunteer of the year Scott Laugel
The Chief's Award Divison Chief Don Neel
New Officers Appointed
On Monday November 26, Assistant Chief David Bretz
announced two new promotions of members of the
department.
Effective November 30th, Lt. Jeremy Hoesli is promoted to Captain and will have the designation 8A10 and Captain Dave Magary will assume the designation 8A7.
Firefighter Mike Tanner was the next one on the promotion list and becomes a Lieutenant. Mike will be have the call number of 8A13.
Explorer Scouts put on training exercise for German Firefighters
The scouts from Explorer troop 399 again did a great job of acting as injured victims of a hay ride that went bad. Click on image to see pictures.
Assistant Chief David Bretz is Kiwanis Firefighter of the year
The Kiwanis Club of the East Evansville named Assistant Chief
David Bretz as Volunteer Firefighter of the Year at their 13th annual awards
dinner on Thursday October 18, 2007. Chief Bretz has been a member of the German
Fire Department for 19 years. Although he is the facilities manager at Holiday
Health Care he has made about 60% of the runs this year. The chief is always
glad when someone else has incident command so that he can get in there and get
his hands dirty. Congratulations to Assistant Chief Bretz!!
For more pictures taken at the presentation.