Poplar Bluff Fire Department Battalion Chief Roy Lane will work his last shift with the local fire department Sunday, but his coworkers say he will always be a member of their team and brotherhood. He was honored Friday afternoon at the Black River Coliseum for his 20 plus years of service.
“Roy is one of the hardest workers you will ever find,” said Fire Chief Mike Moffitt. “If there ever was someone that found their true calling in life, it was Roy. He loves the fire service. He has never feared anything, although many times he should have. He and I have seen a lot of really bad things in our career, things people shouldn’t see. We’ve also seen and done a lot of great things together. I will miss him greatly.”
The pair started in the fire service as young men, Moffitt said.
“Roy says it’s time for him to go and I wish him the best in the next chapter of his life,” he said. “We’re all going to miss Roy. He’s leaving behind some big shoes to fill.”
It’s hard to sum up in a few words a 20-plus year working relationship, fellow Battalion Chief Stacy Harmon said.
“People always hear us use the term ‘brotherhood’ and only those of us who have walked this path truly understand what that means. Roy was and is the epitome of this term,” he said.
Harmon describes Lane as “passionate about his job but even more passionate about his role as a father, husband and friend. The city of Poplar Bluff, its citizens and myself were blessed to have this man answer the call for all these years. Just because a firefighter hangs up his gear and switches to the next phase of his life doesn’t mean he stops being a firefighter. Roy is and always will be PBFD and I’ll miss my brother but I know his influence here will live on.”
Reflecting on leaving the danger and stress of his career, Lane talks about his vocation. After graduating from Poplar Bluff High School, he joined the U.S. Navy. He served during Desert Storm and Desert Shield on a landing support amphibious ship, which enabled more than 300 marines to go on shore where there are no docks or piers.
After the military, Lane made his home in Maryland, where he was self employed installing flooring before attending the correctional academy and working two years as a corrections officer.
While working other jobs, he volunteered with the Howard County Fire Department, which serves areas between Baltimore City and Washington D.C. To become a volunteer, he had to take the firefighter, training which included becoming an emergency medical technician.
When Lane applied to become a full-time firefighter, he was one of more than 2,000 seeking a position in the department. After testing, about 46 were accepted to the academy and 28 graduated.
The applicants were given written tests, physicals and interviews. Some were eliminated at each step along the way. Each person had to take a psychological test and be interviewed by a psychiatrist.
“I went to a 20-week fire academy when I got hired,” he said. “Even though I already had all my classes, I had to go through a fire academy again. So I got a double dose.”
Lane recalls, the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, arriving home after work at Harris County Fire Department.
“I got home, my wife called me and told me to watch TV,” he said. “I got to see the second plane hit. I called work to see if I needed to go in and they said, ‘No, we don’t know what else is going to happen. Just stand by.’ I was about 20 minutes from the Pentagon.”
When his mother became sick, he and his wife, Theresa, decided to move to Poplar Bluff so they could raise their son, Steven, in a smaller town.
Steven has graduated college from Northwest Missouri State with a degree in computer graphic design. Steven and his wife, Linney, live in Denver, Colorado, where he is working at Walgreens while taking classes to be a pharmacy tech.
When Lane moved his family to Poplar Bluff in 2002, coming home to a smaller community and fire department was an adjustment.
Harris County was a bigger department and had more employees.
“An average fire there, you would have 20 something guys,” Lane said. “Here, we’ve got nine initially. We had 11 stations versus three here. I think we had over 300 to 400 total firefighters, which included men and women. We also ran medical calls out of the fire station.”
While Harris County firefighters were trained in all areas, “there were so many trucks, you come in, you have one job. You’re doing search and rescue or you’re doing ventilation or you’re doing fire attack or you’re on a RIT team, which was a team that’s outside to come rescue us. We don’t have that. We don’t have the manpower for that.”
A confident Lane shares about his coworkers in Poplar Bluff, “I would stack any of these guys against any of them.”
Camaraderie among the fire crews big or small is the same.
“We pick at each other,” he said. “We had a guy that lost a ladder on the way to call. He went to bed and a ladder was in his bed.”
Lane said, “No matter the size of the fire teams, stress of the job, bad calls that don’t go away and joking around with sick humor normal people would not understand are standard for firefighters.
“I have friends still working with the Harris County fire department,” he said. “One is a deputy chief. We talk jobs. He can’t believe how we operate here, which he thinks is awesome. We don’t get medical calls. I mean, because the guys who like fire, like the medical stuff as much.”
While the PB fire department doesn’t require the firefighters to be EMTs, many are and the others are trained in CPR and other emergency care procedures.
Lane admits, he’s had some bad calls both here and in Maryland.
“I had a call in Maryland that really bothers me. I’ve got a guy that was on a call with me and occasionally we’ll call each other just out of the blue and talk. My philosophy is, talking to somebody that doesn’t do the job is a little bit harder than somebody who does this job, (who) would understand more than a psychologist.”
Lane is involved in a dive program, Undersea Warriors, at the local John J. Pershing VA Medical Center, where Lane volunteers.
“It’s for PTSD for military, police and fire,” Lane said. “It’s pretty awesome because you get down there and the only thing is you, your breathing and looking at stuff. It’s real calm. It’s a rock quarry. They’ve got planes, they’ve got old cars, they’ve got helicopters, they’ve got a fire truck and ambulance and all kinds of stuff down there. Plus there’s fish and when you’re under there, it’s quiet. You listen to music, like you’re listening music in your car but under the water. There’s fish that’ll come up to you. I mean big, big fish. There’s a couple of really big catfish and stuff. Really awesome place but it’s made for training. “
Once retired, Lane plans to stay busy. He and his wife are going on vacation to see her brother in Michigan. He’ll continue volunteering at the local VA.
“I’m still going to come around because I’m the president of the memorial scholarship fund we started at college,” he said. “ I was the one that started that. They elected me president so that keeps me around. I also started the firefighter of the year award.”
He makes crafts like the one he did for firefighter Chad Bells’ butcher shop Country Market and Half Whiskey.