The Kilgore College Fire Academy held its graduation Tuesday, July 26th. Total graduating in the class were 19 firefighters including two live In fire students Neil Blasky and Collin Fitzgerald who were canadian students who were being housed in one of our fire stations.

Also significant of the night was the retirement of the Dean of Adult Education and founder of Kilgore Fire Academy, Dean Mike Earley. Dean Earley had help to establish the Kilgore Fire Academy in 1989 and has overseen it since the very beginning. He has given 35 years to Kilgore College, and says that he will continue to come to the Fire Academy Graduations after his retirement.

Longview Fire Department had members of its Pipes and Drums Band who came and played a few songs on the Bagpipes and Drums  for the special occasion while wearing traditional Kilts with their ensemble.

Thank you Dean Earley for establishing the Kilgore Fire Academy that has helped to train so many Firefighters since its beginning. Your legacy will continue for many years to come.

Members of the Elderville Lakeport Volunteer Fire Department, Nickolas Clayton, Bill Freer, Josh Stelly, and Adam Switzer made their way to College Station, Tx for the 82nd Annual Municipal Fire School.

The Fire School is a week long and is usually held toward the end of July. Among the many Courses that were offered the firefighters were able to attend Firefighting, Foam Operations, and Extrication.

The School is held on the World Class Brayton Fire Training Field in College Station in addition to class rooms that are also Held on the Texas A&M University Campus.

Classes Range from Introductory Firefighting, to Emergency Care Attendant (Emergency Medicine), and Fire Department Officer. With an army of volunteer instructors and volunteer firefighters many of them on their annual vacations to go and train, the classes held here usually offer some of the best training due to the variety of resources and backgrounds of the instructors.

Thank you to our Fire Department Members who attended this training and sacrificed a week of your time! And thanks to all of the instructors who took the time to teach at this school.

In the spring of 2011 ELVFD sponsored their 3rd annual 73 hour Introduction to Firefighting class.  ELVFD holds these classes to help local fire departmenst get their firefighters the nesseccary training needed to be able to enter a burning structure in the state of Texas. These students went to class on Mondays and Thursdays from 6pm-10pm for 9 weeks straight and including one Saturday. They had to complete numerous skills for  the class such as advancing a hoselines, donning full PPE and SCBA in under 2 minutes, and performing forcible entry techniques. ELVFD would like to congratulate these students on their completion of this class.  Without the help of area fire department instructors this training would not have been possible