MINSTER — Dale Dues has retired after 40 years with the Minster-Jackson Township Volunteer Fire Department without ever experiencing something many another firefighter has been called on to do.
The former fire chief never had to get a cat out of a tree.
“Nope, not once in 40 years,” he laughed.
He did, however, have to handle much more serious matters. When a department gets 75 to 90 calls a year and a man has been volunteering for four decades, he has dealt with just about every kind of fire there is.
“Structure fires, grass fires, industrial fires, commercial fires, accidents — and false alarms,” he said.
It was a soon-to-be brother-in-law who suggested to Dues in 1977 that he join the department. A Minster native who graduated from Minster High School in 1970, Dues found his vocation when he began to work at a tool and die shop to earn money for college. He attended classes for awhile, but the tool and die business felt like the right thing to pursue. In 1985, he opened his own shop, Duco Tool and Die, in his hometown. He’s still running it.
He waited until the last minute to apply to fill the opening at the fire department and got basic training at the local station from instructors who had traveled from Greenville.
“I started as a firefighter; although, back then I was called a fireman,” Dues said. He became chief in 1996. But he started his career on a maintenance crew. At the time, there were a chief, five officers and 32 crewmen. Now there are 36.
The number of volunteers is not the only thing that’s changed since Dues’s first day on the job. In the ’70s, a siren announced the need for firefighters to report to the station house. Without cell phones, the village used a telephone chain to get the word out.
“The chief’s wife would call the five officers. The officers’ wives would call each crew member. The siren sounded, too,” Dues said. “In later years, we got pagers and now it’s cell phones.”
In the early days, firefighters would drive their personal vehicles to the site of a fire and get their gear off the firetruck. That gear is not the same today as it was then, either.
“When we first started, we wore over-the-knee rubber boots and a rubber coat. Now, it’s short boots, a short coat, a Nomex hood under your helmet,” Dues said. “Gear became more fire-retardant and protective over the years. You can go into hotter fires (now) and be protected. There’s a self-contained breathing apparatus. That technology has changed a lot, with all kinds of safety devices on it now. It warns you if you’re out of air.”
The training that’s required for firefighters is more intense, now, too, because the materials that burn in any given fire are more hazardous.
“Back then, it was mostly wood and paper product in houses. Now, it’s plastic,” Dues noted. Training, much of it repetitive, has been continuous throughout his career.
“The only way to keep sharp is to keep doing it. You have to be ready for the unexpected,” he added. But some things simply can’t be prepared for. Minster experienced the first fatal fire in its history in April 2015.
“When it comes about, you deal with it the best you can,” Dues said. He admits that when he was young, there was an excitement, an adrenaline rush, in responding to a fire.
“As you get older, you realize it’s about how it affects the people you’re helping. Being in charge of the fire department — it’s not an ‘I’ organization. It’s a ‘we’ organization. We’re in it not for praise, but to help people. Any time that we can get the situation under control before there’s a lot of damage, those are the ones that make you feel good. When there are fires or accidents that involve children, it’s tougher than other times. Or if it’s someone you know. You can’t let that cloud anything. You’ve got to just keep doing your job,” he said.
The largest conflagration Dues had to fight was an industrial fire at a plastics recycling business that was hit by lightning, May 17, 1992.
“We had to call in three aerial ladders and multiple departments for mutual aid,” he said. It’s just one of a lifetime of memories.
Dues’s fellow volunteers, family and friends celebrated his firefighting career with a retirement party, March 5. He will still get notifications on his cell phone, but when he talked with the Sidney Daily News, there had not been a call since the party.
“I don’t know if I’ll jump to respond and then remember that I’m retired or not,” he said. But he admitted that it’s been difficult to drive past the fire station, “knowing I don’t have any say so or control.” He does know that now was the right time to hang up his gear.
“It’s a young person’s job,” he said. “And I knew it would be in good hands.”
Rich Prenger has been appointed the new chief (see story at right). He’s been with the department for 30 years, has been an officer for 25 and has served as assistant chief for the last five.
“I’ll miss his leadership and his getting things done,” Prenger said of his former boss. “The sacrifice that he had to make over 20 years is something I’m just finding out. Everyone appreciates the sacrifice he made. Forty years is something you don’t often see today.”
For his part, Dues will miss serving with his men.
“The older ones are like brothers and the younger ones are like sons,” he said. He looks forward to spending time with his real family, his wife, Mag; his daughters, Amy Korte and Jodi Dues; and his grandchildren, Kennedy, Taylor and Carter Korte.
