Greetings everyone and Happy New Year. The May services for 2022 will be May 14-15. The Candlelight Service will start Saturday at 9:00 p.m. (or a little after) and the Sunday morning service will start at 10:30 a.m.
Services will be held regardless of weather. Our next Foundation meetings are January 16th and following the FFAM Board meeting February 13th weather permitting.
The May service goes into full preparation with our January meeting. Short turn-around from our October services that were delayed from May 2021. The most significant factor for May 2022 is the certification of several names by National for recognition and receiving of LODD Honors. There is a back-log in the review process due to hundreds more public service hero’s passing from COVID. By operational policy we cannot (do not) move forward with LODD Honors until formally cleared and recognized by either the State of Missouri Worker’s Comp death benefit or by National. We have several that have passed from COVID and while there is the presumption that is must have been in the line their service, we must wait for State or National to vet/agree through formal review and sign-off. Medical only confirms the cause of death, State/National must confirm by their standards it was in the line of service.
Brian Zinnani has been working non-stop assisting families and departments in filings to State and National for benefits. By April we have to decide to hold off or initially starting with name recognition only while waiting official confirmation in honoring the service as line of duty at a later date? We will be taking a lot of guidance in this area from Brian. I ventured into this topic because I have already been part of conversations that medical signed off that it was COVID, they had to have been exposed at a call, and the department is calling it line of duty so they should be recognized in May. There is one more step as outlined above and that is the hold-up for several names at the time of this article.
Regarding other names for those who have served and passed for other reasons than in the line of duty, we are approaching 50 that we know of, but concerned that we have not received a notification for all which qualify for name recognition in May. I (we) appreciate duplication in this area vs. missing a name so please review 2021 in your department plus your region and let us know if you have a name which should be recognized. A posting on Facebook does not mean that we will catch it for our records. We will be recognizing 2021 plus any names we may have missed from 2020 and 2019. Just in case we have missed a name from 2021, we are providing the name/department recognized in our October service. Please review and let us know.
In our last Foundation meeting, we identified several improvement areas for the 2022 services which will be implemented in as much as possible. Some of this was feed-back to a Foundation member. While much of this remains as work product, please know that all observations and recommendations brought to our attention are taken seriously and reviewed for possible implementation. We cannot improve on what we may have missed and brought to our attention. This is your memorial and your opinion counts so please have a conversation. We try to take the “Walt Disney” approach to such things in not saying “NO”. He required all of his staff that interacted with the public to always take the approach of, “while we cannot do it exactly that way, here is what we can do for you”.
Thank you for your time and especially your support. If you need to contact me for questions or have names to check call me at 314-709-0760 or email me at keith.smith@warrenton-fire.org.
2020 SERVICE NAMES
Melvin A. Emge
James Robert George
Herman C. Ott, Jr.
Roy Lee Kirby
Larry Ray Harbolt
Edwin Eugene Cantrell
Danny Clay Fry
Richard “Rick” Anderson
Gary Everette Constable
Dennis James House
Steven L. Snyder Jr.
Galen R. Hammann
Ralph Edward Starck
Louis Dugan Speckhals
Joseph Henry Pautler
Michael F. Casey Jr.
Gary L. Peterein
Donald Robert Rust
Russell James Otis
Charles Daniel Stepan
Glenn R. Weaver
Michael L. Schmidt
Stephen Harold Bruns
Lester Eugene Wissmann
Norman George Jarrett
Leland Edward Davis
Darrell Wade Norris
Richard Julius King
Gerry Dan Gillenwater
James Lee Boyer, Sr.
Allen K. Beck
Jessie Edger Bowers
Jim Lee Harris
Brian Pfeifer
Michael L. Stitt
Charles Milburn Scrogin
Don C. Hunter
John G. Lewis
James Milton Weber
Ralph Edward Barnwell Jr.
Isaac Gerald Taylor
Arthur Wesley Wade
Louis Joseph Hulshof
Glenn William Greene, Sr.
Richard Leon Peterson
Jaret Adam Farmer
Henry Martin Schuessler
James Calvin Furlow, Sr.
Larry Vernon Sprick
Jeffery “Jeff” Watson
Gordon Reid Ekedahl
Robert D. Luedde
Richard Allen Wright
James Andrew Ortmeyer
Gary John Leibach
Brian David Rudy
Kenneth E. Stice
Keith Ray Sutton
Lester John Pieper
Harold Eugene Folta
Robert D. Hammann
Larry Allen Rizner
FFAM
