Cheyenne Bullock, a senior at Fair Grove, is a junior volunteer for the Fair Grove Fire Department. She is currently the chief of the junior volunteers. Cheyenne started her training when she was twelve and has been a part of the department for five years. She says, “When the weather was really dry the last few summers we had a lot of grass fires. I helped out a lot by running these calls to go put out fires. We also run medical calls when needed and are usually the first ones on scene. In the event of a natural disaster we aid everyone in the community as much as we can.” As volunteers for the fire department, juniors get a lot of training time and become certified to help in almost all calls the fire department may have.

    “Right now I have a CERT certification. Basically it means I went through and passed all of the required training to run any calls. CERT stands for community emergency response team. I am also certified in CPR and as a basic first responder, storm spotter, and wildfire 101.” She goes on to say that the fire department does some community outreach throughout the year on top of their normal calls,  from teaching elementary students about fire safety and prevention, community blood drives, and being involved in the annual fall festival heritage days every September. Overall, Cheyenne says her favorite part about being in the fire department is simply that she knows she is making a difference in the community and helping others when medical care is needed. She mentions that usually in an extreme medical case, there are just a few minutes to act quick. Those few minutes might be what saves a person’s life. As a first responder you have to learn to not panic and do the best you can to help the person.

    “My biggest volunteer moment where I felt like I was doing a lot of help was in the summer of 2012. Fair Grove and a lot of the area departments were on call constantly with fires starting up from the dry heat. Every day there was a call for me to help with and I felt like I really was making a difference putting out the fires, even if they were small,” shared Cheyenne.

    After high school Cheyenne plans on finishing her fire science degree and maybe attaining a public relations officer certificate. Currently, she is halfway through working on this degree from her training at the department and classes she has taken through OTC’s votech program.