Sept. 19--Chris Hoover could be driving a school bus one minute and a fire truck the next.
It's all part of his double-duty role as a school bus driver and shop foreman for Lubbock-Cooper Independent School District and a firefighter for the Woodrow Volunteer Fire Department.
And Hoover isn't the only one. Joe Gillispie, LCISD grounds supervisor, has had to leave more than one lawn half mowed to respond to a fire with the department where he's served for 10 years.
The two men keep their bunker gear in red gym bags inside district-owned white pickups, and as of the Wednesday, Sept. 18, LCISD Board of Trustees meeting, they have the district's approval to use the vehicles to respond to an emergency.
This will save them a considerable amount of time, Hoover and Gillispie said. Instead of having to drive home to switch vehicles and then to the scene of the fire, they can now don their gear and respond to the emergency in a shorter amount of time.
"We like that Lubbock-Cooper is allowing us to do it," Hoover said. "This business is supporting us."
Pat Henderson, LCISD superintendent, said the men have had his permission to respond to emergencies during school hours for a long time. The next step of allowing them to use district vehicles was the district's way of supporting a community effort.
"The Woodrow fire department is such an important function out here," Henderson said. "They're a great organization. That's just our little way to try to give back some."
The fire department of 25 volunteers covers 68 square miles in an "L" shape, including west from the Woodrow community past Frankford Avenue and south to the Lynn County line, Gillispie said. They've aided the Lubbock Fire Department in the past and are accustomed to providing backup emergency medical services for various agencies.
Emergencies have taken Hoover and Gillispie from their school district duties three to four times in a day before, and blazes like the 2006 fire at Wylie LP Propane during a school day have occupied a lot of their time.
But while it may seem like a tough balancing act, the men said they don't let their duties as public servants get in the way of their commitment to the children of LCISD.
If Hoover gets paged en route, he said he doesn't respond until he has taken all the children where they need to be -- even though some students may enjoy the hype of rushing to the scene of an emergency, he joked. If there's a fire while he's in the bus barn, he asks one of the other three men with commercial driver's licenses to cover his work responsibilities for him until he returns.
And Gillispie doesn't leave his work halfway done for long. He's been known to return to a campus and finish the job at night or on the weekend.
"It's nothing to work until 7 or 8 (p.m.) if we need to," Gillispie said.
His decision to volunteer with the department stemmed from growing up in a small farm community near Amarillo.
"When lightning strikes, everyone helps each other," he said, and he knows firsthand what that's like.
About a year and a half ago he was on a riding lawn mower at Laura Bush Middle School when he got the call that the shop at his family-owned lawn care business was on fire. He left immediately and was first to arrive on the scene.
"We're fortunate that we have a superintendent that allows us to do that," Gillispie said. "It's the worst nightmare to know your place is on fire and not be able to go."
But the two men aren't just thankful for Henderson or the new rule.
Above all, they're glad they've never had to use their firefighting skills for LCISD besides conducting occasional fire safety training and being on the lookout during fireworks displays, which they'll be doing for Lubbock-Cooper High School's homecoming pep rally today.
-- 766-2194
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