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Howell the GAFC 2014 Fire Chief of the Year
Freddy Howell
Freddie Howell with Ben Taylor. - photo by Provided.
Jeff Whitte
Bryan County News
Updated: Sep 20, 2014, 9:00 AM
Published: Sep 19, 2014, 9:55 PM

Bryan County Emergency Services Director Freddy Howell has been named the 2014 Fire Chief of the Year by the Georgia Association of Fire Chiefs.

Howell received the award Thursday afternoon in Macon at an annual conference for members of the Georgia Association of Fire Chiefs and the Georgia State Firefighters Association.

The firefighters who nominated him for the award say he earned the honor.

"He’s the best," said Susan Clark, who’s served Bryan County for 30 years and is currently the Emergency Services chief of administration and also is deputy coroner. "Chief Howell puts his heart into everything he does, he’s just awesome. And he’s very dedicated to the citizens of Bryan County. He wants to do what’s best for them."

Battalion chiefs Deva Strode and Matthew Schultz said much the same. All three nominated Howell for the honor without realizing their co-workers were doing the same thing. "Chief Howell is basically the hardest working chief I know, and

"I’ve worked in the fire service for 15 years and he’s the best chief I’ve known," Schultz said. "He’s constantly doing something to move our department in the direction it needs to go. He’s a fun guy to be around and enjoys the work, he’s very passionate about it. He’s also a good role model, he sets a good example in both his work and his personal life."

Howell also isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and will pitch in to get things done, said Strode, who has been a battalion chief for six years.

"In my opinion, Chief Howell is an excellent leader. He’s not afraid to get into the trenches with the rest of us," she said.

Clark said Howell also worked to improve the morale of those who work for Bryan County Emergency Services.

"He is for the employees. He’s for making our facilities and our equipment better," Clark said.

Howell had no idea he’d been nominated, he said Thursday, and clearly had trouble finding the right words to describe what the honor meant to him. It also was clearly a well-kept secret, at least from Howell.

"I’m shocked, emotional, all those adjectives that describe someone surprised about something," he said, shortly after receiving the award. "I had no clue, no clue. They kept it a good secret."

Schultz said that was by design after he, Strode and Clark learned through a phone call that Howell had been picked as the state’s top fire chief for 2014.

"They asked how we wanted to handle it, did we want to tell him or keep it secret," Schultz said. "We wanted to keep it a secret. I’m excited that we could keep it a surprise."

It took some doing, however. Howell didn’t stay for the banquet when the award is normally announced, so arrangements had to be made. Howell’s wife Kathryn was among those informed in advance, and she and her son James joined Bryan County Administrator Ben Taylor and Bryan County Emergency Services Assistant Chief Otis Willis in Thursday’s trip up I-16 to Macon to be there when the honor was announced.

The award is named after former Rockdale County Fire Chief Tommy Morgan, whom Howell called "a strong advocate of the fire service."

Howell thanked those who nominated him.

"I’m just humbled beyond what words can say … humbled to be nominated, humbled to be presented the award, humbled to be among those who’ve received this award," he said.

Howell was hired by the Bryan County Board of Commissioners in November, 2012. Prior to that he served as fire chief in both Waycross and at King’s Bay Navy Submarine Base and has nearly 30 years of experience.

County commissioners Carter Infinger and Steve Myers also learned early that Howell had been tabbed as Fire Chief of the Year and both sent out congratulatory messages earlier this week that were nearly identical.

"Bryan County hired the right guy," Myers said.

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Later yall, its been fun
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Ted O'Neil
Updated: May 23, 2018, 6:03 PM
Published: May 23, 2018, 6:05 PM

This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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