The city of Knoxville and the Knoxville Fire Department never forget our fallen heroes who died on the job or its retired firefighters who passed away in the last year. It is a special ceremony for special people – and for their families.
Each year in October, the KFD holds its annual Memorial Service Honoring Fallen Firefighters at midday at the KFD’s Headquarters Fire Station in downtown Knoxville. This year’s service was Oct. 25, with Mayor Madeline Rogero and Chief Stan Sharp speaking and placing a wreath at the firefighters’ statue in Firefighter Memorial Park in front of the station. A luncheon followed in the Headquarters Fire Station.
The annual ceremony honors the 24 KFD firefighters who lost their lives in the line of duty since 1885 and the retired firefighters who have died since the last memorial service. As part of the ceremony, attended by active and retired firefighters and family and friends of those being honored, a bell is tolled once for each of the fallen firefighters.
At the same time, as each fallen firefighter’s name is read by Chief Sharp and the bell is tolled, a single red rose is placed into a gold-colored vase bearing the department’s insignia.
Honored were the retired KFD firefighters who died this past year: Kenneth Michael Bailes, George P. Carney, Paul S. Hall, Bob E. Hanshaw, Alva Harmon, Thomas E. Hatton, Sherman “Bob” Holbert, H. Earl Householder Jr., Lynn E. Kirby, Wiley N. Lynch Jr., Fred H. Mikels Jr., and Jack W. Rader.
KFD had only been an organized paid department for 19 years when it suffered its first two line-of-duty deaths in 1904. The citizens thought it fitting to perpetuate in stone the names of the deceased men who perished protecting the property of their neighbors. Since the memorial’s inception there have been 24 names of firefighters who died etched in the stone.