Honeywell and DuPont™ Kevlar® have combined to award 20 deserving firefighters and first responders with a full-paid scholarship - including travel and accommodations - to attend to FDIC International 2017, the industry's premier safety and training event. Recipients will receive airfare, lodging and a food stipend.

Scholarships were awarded based on:

- Distinguished leadership, dedication to their community, and outstanding implementation of best practices
- Passion for knowledge, training and improving department techniques and safety
- A history of attending training seminars/classes and implementing best practices from his/her training that benefit the department

Scholarship Recipients gain from the experience:
See - Innovations and new methods from fire industry experts and trainers.
Learn - Advance your knowledge base. Improve your techniques.
Change - And update your approach to response, rescue, and department and community safety.


Congratulations December Recipients:

Dan Gatz
De Pere Fire Rescue, nominated by Chief Al Matzke

Brian Minton
Williston Fire Department, nominated by Chris Gillies

Lieutenant Robert (Bobby) Drake
Hanover Fire-EMS Department, nominated by Eddie Buchanan

Captain Jason Dolph
Anchorage Fire Department, nominated by Alex Boyd

Pat Taaffe
St. Johns County Fire Rescue nominated by Heath Steen and Michael A Pedigo


See September's recipients
See October's recipients
See November's recipients

A local Kennewick family is now displaced after flames sent them running for their lives early Wednesday morning. The hero that first alerted the family to the fire was a newborn, who's not even two weeks old. “He woke up and so we were making him a bottle and I was holding him and that's when I heard the noise outside that sounded like a band or a thud,” said father Blake Sickler.
- PUB DATE: 1/6/2017 12:36:32 AM - SOURCE: KEPR-TV CBS 19

Fifteen former or current Marinwood firefighters are suing the Marinwood Community Services District, claiming it shorted them on overtime pay. The lawsuit alleges the district violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by miscalculating the regular pay rate upon which overtime is based. The firefighters said the district should have included not just hourly pay in its calculation of the regular pay rate, but also other compensation such as special assignment pay, holiday pay, college incentive pay and reimbursement for benefit costs.
- PUB DATE: 1/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Marin Independent Journal

A Richmond Fire Chief battling stage four cancer is using journey, and the journey of his new scooter, to spread a critical message to firefighters across the country. Creasy said his chemotherapy treatments have severely limited his mobility since his cancer diagnosis in 2014. Richmond firefighter Roger Myers knows the realities of cancer intimately, so he devised a plan to help Chief Creasy.
- PUB DATE: 1/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WTVR-TV CBS 6

Bernie Madoff. It's a name now often bandied about when talking about the failing Dallas Police and Fire Pension fund. "The reality of it is that it was a Bernie Madoff type scheme," says Lee Kleinman, a city council member and former pension board trustee. The city has agreed to put in an additional billion dollars over 30 years, but they're proposing a series of bitter pills to make up the rest of the nearly $4 billion shortfall.
- PUB DATE: 1/6/2017 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WFAA-TV ABC 8 Dallas - Fort Worth