“Super nice guy. Always gives 100%. No super big story behind him other than he is an excellent employee and we wish we had a lot more just like him.” Those words are from a veteran chief at the Knoxville Fire Department (KFD) about Senior Firefighter Clayton Proctor.
Senior Firefighter Clayton Proctor
Super nice. Gives 100%. Excellent at this job. High praise indeed for this 30-year-old, six-year KFD firefighter working at Station 9 in Fort Sanders. But there are other stories about this young man. He’s not a slacker. He’s busy, real busy!
At home, working daily with his wife of almost eight years, Lindsey, rearing their three children – daughters Lorelai, 6; Palmer, 3; and 4-month-old son Callum.
A U.S. Air Force veteran firefighter of 10 years who pulled tours in RAF Lakenheath Base in England and at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland near Washington, D.C., home to Air Force One and units of the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines. It even hosts a chapter of the Civil Air Patrol. The fire station at Joint Base is next door to Air Force One’s hangar.
Proctor is a staff sergeant (E-5) with the 134th Tennessee National Guard refueling wing at McGhee Tyson Airbase. The 134th flies the KC-135 Stratotanker, which provides the core aerial refueling capability for the U.S. Air Force. Part of his job is to fight any fires or emergencies on these big tankers that fly around the world. He was part of a six-month deployment for the 134th to Niger from July 2021 to January 2022. He is a driver/operator, a firefighter 1 & 2 and a hazardous materials technician.
He has an associate’s degree in fire science/firefighting from the Community College of the Air Force and is currently working to graduate in May 2025 with a bachelor’s degree in professional military science from Liberty University. He’s also considering going to Officer Candidate Training school.
Proctor’s real hobby is being a beer brewmaster in the family’s kitchen. He’s in the process of creating a batch of pecan praline beer that will yield about 60 bottles of beer and he’ll give away most of it, he says. Next up for brewing will be a stout.
He’s the youngest of four children, a Navy “brat,`” he says, and the family was always on the move following his father’s career. After a 25-year career, his father decided to become a doctor. Today he serves as a doctor at the Bluegrass Army Depot in Richmond, Kentucky, and his mother is a nurse. An older brother is a hospital athletic trainer, one older sister is a pharmacist and his other sister is a nurse. Everyone in the family has a servant’s heart, he says.
His interest in this work began when he was in high school in New London, Connecticut, where his father served at the Navy’s submarine base there.
“I started working as a volunteer as a junior in high school in 2010, and earned my EMT (emergency medical technician) and firefighter 1 certificates,” he says. “I was hooked.”
And after his high school graduation, joining the Air Force changed his life in many ways. During basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, he became best friends with Cameron Cunningham, and at graduation there he met Cameron’s sister, Lindsay. Then he and Cunningham were off to Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, for Fire Academy. She came to their graduation there and he began to get to know Lindsay.
In October 2014, he served in England and Lindsay eventually came for a visit. He planned a trip to Paris. “I proposed to her at the base of the Eiffel Tower,” he says and on October 15, 2016, they exchanged vows.
Proctor ended up in Knoxville when his father worked at Y-12 after his Navy career and he wanted to be near family. KFD was hiring, so he applied, was hired and began working in 2018. And after he spent so much time moving here and there – bouncing around, he calls it – they settled in Knoxville when his career began in October 2018, working on Engine 2 at KFD’s headquarters station downtown.
“This is home. I enjoy the work. It’s a very rewarding field, a thankless job at times, but seeing the results of your work you know you are making a difference. It’s special when you see it in the facial expressions of people you have helped who are thanking you without saying a word.”
Today he’s part of the three-member crew on Ladder 9 that includes Capt. Jeff Jones and Master Firefighter Dan Hanshaw.
And he added these thoughts: “The excitement of the job and the camaraderie is a big reason I love it here … that sense of belonging that I experience at a deeper level. We build trust in one another. It’s very special for me.”
Tom King has been the editor of newspapers in Texas and California and also worked in Tennessee and Georgia. If you have someone you think we should consider featuring, please email him at the link with his name or text him at 865-659-3562.