By BARBARA ANN HORTON
Staff Writer
Trey McDaniel of Williamsville is the first recipient of the Poplar Bluff Fire Department Memorial Scholarship to Three Rivers College fire academy, McDaniel’s award was presented in honor of Walter Weaver.
Poplar Bluff Fire Chief Mike Moffitt said, Weaver “is the only Poplar Bluff firefighter killed in the line of duty. From there, we will do the scholarship in memory of other firefighters who have passed away.”
Accepting the honor, McDaniel said, “I’m very excited to win the scholarship. Especially to find out I’m the first one ever. I’m truly honored.”
Attending a fire training academy has been in McDaniel’s plans for awhile.
The Greenville High School graduate and baseball player postponed the training while he played ball for five years with Southern Illinois University. He had an extra season because of COVID. He also played with the Gateway Grizzlies are a member of the West Division of the Frontier League, which is a partner league of Major League Baseball.
“I’ve always played baseball,” said McDaniel, adding he was looking for a career with a team setting where he could learn the skills to help others.
“The skills that I’ll learn about the fire department I can use in my own family safe,” he said.
His parents are Kim and Rick McDaniel of Williamsville.
His scholarship will pay for TRC classes Firefighter I, Firefighter II, and HazMat Awareness.
McDaniel already was enrolled in the upcoming classes which begin Jan. 17.
Firefighters are awarding one scholarship this year, but hope to award two scholarships in the years to come.
Moffitt said, “We’ve developed a scholarship fund. We want to try to devote all of our fundraising efforts toward that. This also will help promote emergency services careers with the college. We want to encourage young people from this area to pursue a career in emergency services, whether it be here in Poplar Bluff or somewhere else. We’d like them to stay here.”
“Our department, I’m hoping, is going to grow in the next few years,” he continued. “We want to promote it and make it an attractive career field for people of our area. Our goal is to send two individuals through our fire science program at Three Rivers a year. We will have our own review board determine who will get the scholarship.”
The Fire Science program at Three Rivers is a hybrid of online curriculum and hands-on training. With this program, students only need to be on campus one day a week for skills training.