as usual nice job stephen!!
from the pottsville republican/herald
MAHANOY CITY — Al Bright of Shenandoah was named Schuylkill Historical Fire Society “Member of the Year” during the group’s annual banquet Saturday night.
Bright, who serves as building supervisor and custodian of the society’s headquarters at 105 S. Jardin St., Shenandoah, was presented a plaque from Michael Kitsock, society president, and a card from William Kline, vice president.
“He’s been with us since the beginning,” Kitsock said while presenting the award to Bright. “He does everything.”
Bright was a longtime member of the Shenandoah Fire Department and his father is one of the volunteer firefighters in Schuylkill County who died in the line of duty.
Kitsock commended Bright for his untiring efforts to make the society one of the premier historical fire societies in the United States.
Bright, who now lives in the Shenandoah High Rise apartment building around the corner from the society headquarters, said he goes to the building every day to make sure things are where they should be.
“I go out the back door (of the high rise) and into the back door (of the society),” he joked.
The program at Gil’s Catering began with remarks by Kitsock followed by an invocation by society member Lawrence Lonergan.
After dinner, the approximately 50 members and friends on hand for the banquet saw a PowerPoint presentation titled “The Schuylkill Historical Fire Society — A Success Story!” was shown to about 50 members and friends of the society on hand for the banquet.
Member Stephen Barrett, a volunteer firefighter, Frackville borough’s emergency management coordinator and staff sergeant in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, presented Kitsock with a frame that held a flag and information about a mission he was on while taking part in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2006-07.
The frame included photos of a fire station built in Iraq and a vehicle that was converted to fight fires on the base where Barrett was stationed.
The flag, he said, was carried on an M1114LX Anti-IED vehicle during a mission from base Grizzly to base Warhorse on Valentine’s Day 2007.
Barrett said the mission he commanded was on the first day of the troop buildup called the “surge” in that part of Iraq.
The ceremony concluded with “The Famous Lamp Raffle.” Banquet attendee Patrick Carmody, Thorndale, Chester County, won the lamp, made from a fire extinguisher, and has the honor of housing it for a year until it is again raffled off at the 2009 society banquet, Kitsock said.
