FIRE CHIEF GARY NISWONGER TO RETIRE AFTER MORE THAN 20 YEARS

JACKSON -- Jackson will lose the only full-time fire chief the city has ever had when Chief Gary Niswonger retires April 1.

Niswonger went to work for the Jackson Fire Department in 1971 and was named chief in 1977. At 62 going on 63, he decided the time is right to begin his retirement.

"I was looking at my age," said Niswonger, whose wife Margaret is already retired. "If I don't set a date and do it, I will stay until I'm 65."

Mayor Paul Sander called Niswonger "an outstanding fire chief ... He has also earned the respect of the full-time and volunteer firemen. They all like him."

Sander credited Niswonger with starting the city in the right direction of emphasizing fire safety.

"Education in the schools is one of the really good things that has happened with the fire department," Sander said.

"We hate to see him go. But we're very happy for him and appreciative of the 20-plus years he has spent with us."

Niswonger is proud of the department he has built up.

"The fire department is in excellent shape," he said. "We have great response and are well trained."

Jackson is somewhat unique in the region in that its department is a combination of both career firefighters and volunteers. "The volunteers of the City of Jackson have been the backbone of the department," Niswonger said. But he has done his share of firefighting.

He recalls above-ground gasoline tanks exploding at the Ceramo plant in the mid-1970s, and another gasoline-fueled fire in Marble Hill in the mid-80s that destroyed a two-block area and required the assistance of 26 area fire departments to control.

More recently, he helped fight a structure fire with a disabled woman inside. One of the volunteers rescued her, but the other firefighters had to pull them out of the living room. "The smoke was so intense I became disoriented," Niswonger said.

"I just about went down on that."

Hand laying hose is also fatiguing for him now.

Niswonger's father, who everybody called Pink, was on the police force in Cape Girardeau but the idea of becoming a firefighter never occurred to his son Gary. He played basketball and fast pitch softball and married at age 18.

The couple moved to Jackson and he took a job as a salesman for Midwest Dairy. The job lasted 18 years, but the dairy eventually left Cape Girardeau.

Then-City Administrator Carl Talley, a member of the same bowling team, told Niswonger about an impending retirement in the fire department. He discovered that he loved the work.

"It's the protection of life and property -- how important it was," he said.

He was named the city's first full-time chief just as Jackson was starting to grow.

When he joined the fire department in 1971, Niswonger was one of three full-time firefighters complemented by 15 volunteers. The department now has seven full-timers and 17 volunteer firefighters.

In 1977, the city had a Class 9 fire rating -- Class 10 being the worst possible. Jackson now has a Class 5 rating, which is better than many larger communities have.

The single pumper the city had in 1977 has been replaced by four pumpers, one ladder truck, one service van and a mini-pumper off-road vehicle.

Moving into the present fire and police complex in 1981 was an important milestone in the history of the Jackson Fire Department, Niswonger says, citing the better response time and public access it affords.

Teaching school children about fire safety has been important to him. Perhaps the saddest events of his firefighting career occurred when a young mother and her 16-month-old child died in a structure fire about 10 years ago.

"You don't forget them," he says.

The fire was started by a child playing with a lighter and there were no smoke detectors.

The smoke detector is probably the most significant innovation he has seen come along. They cost as much as $50 when first introduced and now are available for less than $10.

"That has saved lives," he said. "People have told me if it hadn't been for their smoke detector they wouldn't have gotten out."

Niswonger also helped start the Cape County Firefighters Association, which now operates the largest regional fire school in the state.

He already has taken his collection of fire toys home, the cast iron horse drawn wagon and the music box that plays "How Dry I Am." He plans to be able to fish a bit more, play more golf, and pay attention to his woodworking, and give more attention to his two grandchildren in St. Louis.

"The hardest thing about leaving is the fellowship with the volunteers and with the Cape County Firefighters," he said.

Sander said City Administrator Steve Wilson will begin the search for a new chief both inside and outside the department.