By Tom Kuhns
Clark County Gazette – August 7, 2013
Submitted by Newz Group Clipping Service – August 28, 2013
The Englewood Volunteer Fire Department will formally show their appreciation to two of its longest serving firemen with a special dinner.
The event will be held this coming Saturday, August 10 beginning at 5 p.m. at the Englewood School. The entire meal will be provided by the fire department.
Eugene “Woody” Woodruff and Chuck McKinney both joined the fire department in 1975 and have been active ever since. Only recently have the two men slowed down their fire department activities.
Both men played a role in the formation of the Englewood Fire Department in April of 1975. Prior to that time, fighting fires in the small Clark County community was something of a hodge-podge effort with antiquated equipment.
“They had an old fire truck down there, whoever would show up they’d jump on it and go to a town fire,” McKinney said of the pre-fire department days.
“There wasn’t that many runs back then,” Woodruff added. “We pretty much stayed at home because we didn’t have anything that would run very far. A lot of the times, we’d head to a small fire and the truck would quit on us.”
“It sure made you feel good,” he said with a sarcastic laugh, “everybody else is going by and you’re trying to make a run.”
McKinney said that Englewood residents were forced to wait on other nearby fire departments in cases of fires in rural areas.
“We had to call Ashland if we had a grass fire out here,” he noted. “By the time they could get around and get over here, it might burn off a thousand acres.”
That all began to change in the spring of 1975 when Woodruff and McKinney helped form the Englewood Fire Department.
Their first step was to replace the City’s old unreliable fire truck with a used two-ton model purchased from the City of Lyons, Kansas. Before long a second truck was added.
McKinney said the vehicles were kept in what used to be the bus barn of the old Englewood school. In 1986, the members of the Englewood Fire Department constructed their own firehouse.
“The commissioners gave us some money and Spotts Lumber helped us a lot and sold us stuff at a considerably discounted price so that we could build a firehouse down there,” McKinney said.
Over the years the Englewood Fire Department continued with their mission of answering two to three calls per month. At the same time they worked to upgrade equipment by holding various fundraisers.
While local residents always supported their events, McKinney said their neighbors to the south also showed their appreciation for the Englewood Fire Department.
“We’d collect a lot of money from the people down in Ditch Valley because we were the closest ones to them if they had a fire down there,” he stated. “They donated a lot of money to us. They were very generous in their donations.”
“We got a lot more equipment, better equipment,” Woodruff said. “We saved our money and kept purchasing. We’ve got pretty good equipment now.”
Some of that upgraded equipment came in the form of improved communications.
“We didn’t have pagers and we didn’t have radios,” McKinney said of the department’s early days. “They had to call you on the telephone. If you weren’t near a phone, you didn’t know.”
In time the department started communicating through private two-way radios and event CB radios. Now, every member of the Englewood Fire Department has access to modern communication devices.
The 3-bay firehouse they constructed in 1986 with used poles was replaced in 2009 with a 6-bay modern firehouse. Funds for the new facility came from fundraisers, the Clark County Commissioners, and land donated by the state of Kansas.
The small fire department that started with a single broken down truck now has a fleet of five modern vehicles, and a crew of sixteen dedicated members.
“If they can get away, they’ll be there,” Woodruff said. “Everybody’s dedicated.”
In spite of the many upgrades and changes the Englewood Fire Department has seen over the years, one thing has remained unchanged—leadership.
In 1986, the fire department elected Woodruff as their Chief. He held that position until this past spring when he stepped down and Bernie Smith assumed the role.
Woodruff was modest in about his 27-year tenure as the leader of the fire department. “One thing about a small department, you don’t give orders, you ask people,” he said. “But you really didn’t have tell anybody anything, everybody just did what they had to do.”
“I was more or less a figurehead,” Woodruff added. “I took all the flack if there was any.”
Another thing that has remained unchanged about the Englewood Fire Department; it is still a voluntary service.
“I had somebody ask me one time, ‘how much money do you get’?” Woodruff stated. “I said ‘we don’t get paid, it’s strictly volunteer.”
“They said, ‘well you get paid on the runs’, I said ‘no, we don’t’. We get paid when the lady of the house comes out and puts her arms around you and says ‘thank you a bunch’.”
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