The end of the year found the Madison Township Fire Department and trustees bidding farewell to two part time firefighters, but moving a pair of fulltime employees into new positions.
Lieutenant Kent Cheek was appointed to Training/Safety/EMS Officer effective Jan. 12. Fire Chief Clifford Mason said the job classification was a topic of discussion for many years and, within the last two years, a memorandum of understanding was issued establishing the new position.
"It’s been a long process," admitted Mason, "but a process that will benefit the entire community."
As a result of Cheek accepting the job, his lieutenant position became vacant, but was not empty for long when the next fulltime eligible candidate moved up in rank-Pamela Price, the township’s first female lieutenant who joined the Madison Township Fire Department nearly 10 years ago.
"I was in the last set of firefighters not hired from a part time list," said the 1989 JFK High School graduate who has a bachelor degree in sports medicine from Heidelberg University and an associate degree in Fire Science from Kaiser University in Florida. "I came down from Heidelberg in 1994 and took a couple of EMS classes. I rode with the township when I did clinics during medic training. As for becoming a firefighter instead of going into sports medicine, I guess I didn’t get enough of an adrenaline
rush from sports medicine, so I became a firefighter and have20been here my entire career."
During a brief swearing-in ceremony, Price’s father, Fred Price Sr., pinned on his daughter’s new badge.
Madison Township police news
•Police Detective James Galvin said a drug bust on Atkinson Road in a school zone resulted in the seizure of several bags of heroin and a felony arrest. A different case on Old Cape West uncovered a suspect selling crack cocaine.
•Criminals used a pry bar to access the front door of a Hamilton Road car wash, but officers responding to the alarm were able to catch both suspects. Galvin said the pair is suspected in several other central Ohio car wash break-ins.
•A freight carrier employee-who moves trailers around a southeast facility-and his accomplices took advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday to steal $30,000 of electronic equipment and computers out of a semi-trailer and transfer the load into a waiting U-Haul van. However, their freeloading shopping spree ended when they were caught by law enforcement officers at a Dublin home.
•Police Chief Greg Ryan told trustees his department was on the receiving end of a pair of grants, one for $15,000 in equipment at no cost to the township, and another for $3,000 for a contract with an outside vendor for communication services providing better access between patrol cars and computer systems.
