are destined to become some of the best firemen. He said Cohen represents those traits.
It is customary for the recipient to comment upon receiving the award. It was evident Cohen was very honored, and he acknowledged the award with a simple “thank you.”
The evening started with a ceremony in which roses were placed in a firefighter’s boot. Buck Craft narrated, with the first rose going to honor firefighters who had lost their lives in the line of duty. The second rose that was placed in the boot was to honor the 9-11 responders, those who participated in recovery of Hurricane Katrina and veterans who are serving to protect our liberty. The third rose was in honor of retired and deceased firefighters.
The fourth rose was placed in memory of Dustin Grubbs, who lost his life while responding to a fire call from the Magee Volunteer Fire Department.
The officer staff for the department is:
-Lane Steele, Chief
-Phillip Magee Asst. Ch.
-Charlie Valadie, Fire Marshal
-Philip Allan, Sec\Treas.
-John Hosey, Parlim.
-Shane Steele, Res. Lt.
-Michael Allan, Lt. 2
-Chris Tuggle, Lt. 1
-Shane Little, Res. Capt.
-David Craft, Capt. 2
-Tony Puckett, Capt. 1
The wives and significant others were presented with a single red rose in acknowledgement of the support shown to firefighters and their pursuit of making the community a safer place to live.
Serving as a fire fighter comes at an expense to those involved. The department logged 382 total training hours over the course of the year performed by the department. One of the requirements of a member is that they commit to having the basic fire training within the first year of becoming a fireman. This is conducted though the Mississippi Fire Academy. Training conducted for Magee over the past year was 1354 hours, which made for a total of 1,784 hours of training conducted over the previous year. Broken down that represents 68.7 hours of training for each fire fighter.
The Magee Fire Department responded to 140 calls last year which represented 674 man hours spent on the scene. That makes an average of 24 hours per firefighter. The highest day for fire calls is on Saturdays and the lightest is on Friday.
Firefighters who responded to 50 percent or more calls included Philip Allan, Shane Little, Patrick Zila, David Craft, Reuben Koehn, Michael Allan, Shane Steele and Phillip Magee. The top percentage went to Chief Lane Steele who made 99.3 percent of the calls 139 of the 140 calls.
Meeting attendance awards were presented for 75 percent or more that list included B. J. Smith, Michael Allan, Reuben Koehn, Patrick Zila, Shane Little, Philip Allan, David Craft and Lane Steele, Mark Parker and Phillip Magee had 100 percent attendance.
Firefighters were recognized for attending 50 percent of meetings and fire calls.
Lane Steele was recognized for 35 years of service to the department.
