There were two calls on Ralph Stucker’s first shift with the Poplar Bluff Fire Department, an electrical short overnight at a home and a call to Briggs & Stratton during the day.
That second call, the failure of a suppression system around a propane tank, caused the guys some anxiety, Stucker recalled of that day in March 1995.
“When we pulled up, it just looked like a big fog down there until we were able to identify what it was,” Stucker said Friday, a few hours before he was recognized with a celebration at the Black River Coliseum.
He was 30 years old when he started with the city fire department and remembers ending his shift to go home, change and go to his “day job” at Gates Rubber Company.
He was excited about his new path, but didn’t imagine he would one day retire as chief of the department.
“The way I look at it, and the way I’ve looked at it since I started in the fire service over 30 years ago, the public is our responsibility,” said Stucker. “I always tell our guys… we take care of the public and we take care of each other.
“We are fortunate enough down there to have such a talented group of people, no matter what problems come up, we can throw it out on the table and somebody is going to come up with a great solution.”
He starts his retirement looking forward to more time with the family that has put up with many late nights, abrupt absences and the constant chatter of an emergency scanner in the background day and night.
But as Stucker has said often since he began considering retirement, everyone is working a temporary job. Everything must come to an end, and everyone will leave their position, handing the reigns off to someone else at some point.
The time will come for Stucker is midnight July 31.
How will he look back on his career, including 13 years as chief?
That will be decided at 12:01 a.m. Aug. 1, according to Stucker.
“I think somebody else has to say whether or not what I did was successful or beneficial, but to me, the measuring stick will be over (Saturday) night at midnight,” Stucker said with a brief pause as the weight of his next words brought the emotion of the day forward. “If every time the guys go through the door to a call, they come back in, I don’t really care about anything else.”
Stucker is the one who makes the phone call to a family member when a firefighter is injured.
“You can tell the sound of their voice, until they come in there and see them, they’ve got the worst images going on,” admitted Stucker. “That’s very stressful and very hard.”
One of the goals Stucker spoke of when he was first named chief is among the accomplishments he’s most proud of. Everyone in the department is now certified as having completed either the firefighter 1 or firefighter 2 courses.
Education offers a better foundation for the firefighters, he believes, keeping the crew safer and allowing them to keep the public safer. The department has also partnered with Three Rivers College to continue offering training opportunities.
“The older guys, when we started, there was really no standard,” Stucker said. “We’ve had guys that’s hired in that really didn’t have any training whatsoever. If off the bat you get a structure fire… we don’t have the extra personnel… everybody needs to be doing something to protect that community.”
The best moments of his career, according to Stucker, have been when the department could make an impact on a family. The worst have been the fires where a life was lost.
“When you see the trucks go down the road with the lights on, someone’s having a bad day,” he said. “If we can get it there and get out ahead of a problem and minimize that, that’s always to me been something that is gratifying.”
Stucker has helped others in the department cope with those days when someone was lost in a fire.
His response to one person who was struggling with, “What could we have done better,” was to say, “Gotten there half an hour sooner.”
“You know doggone good and well that when you got there they were gone. For someone who’s in the seat of command, those are things that are hard to accept,” Stucker said. “You’ll always go back and question what you did.”
Stucker leaves the fire department with battalion chief Mike Moffitt stepping forward as the new chief. They both, like many other leaders of the department, Stucker said, worked under shift commander Boyd Coleman. Coleman worked hard to prepare the next generation for leadership roles, Stucker said.
The challenges ahead for Moffitt, and the department, are continuing to face personnel shortages while the city experiences so much growth.
Stucker has worked for many years without an assistant chief, which puts an added burden on the chief, he said.
“Since we don’t have an assistant chief, I come back, so basically 24 hours a day, seven days a week, I’m always ready to go to something,” Stucker said. “We had a lot of growth in the community after I took over, with the (new) hospital and everything.”
In 2008, an independent needs assessment organized by city officials found a need for a fourth fire department station, Stucker said, and for more personnel.
“They (city officials) are going to have to roll their sleeves up and make some tough decisions, and make some commitments,” Stucker said. “At some point in time, we’re going to get hit and it’s going to be devastating. We’ve had great leadership in the city, but it’s one of those deals where it’s not been a priority.”
But looking back on his years with the city, and the many times Stucker has seen the community rally in times of natural disaster or other tragedies, he’s confident of something else.
“I don’t think there’s anything that can happen that this community can’t rally up and take care of,” said Stucker. “I think ours does that like none other.”
Stucker said he wouldn’t be where he is today without the love and support of his family, including his wife, Pam, daughter, Amy, and son, Aaron, who will get married next year to his fiance, Natalie.
Stucker is also grateful to Butler County Fire Department Chief Bob Fredwell, who initially gave him a chance to work toward becoming a firefighter and who has been a mentor.
“I wouldn’t go back and change anything. I think I’ve had a remarkable career, nothing that I expected,” Stucker said.