Top Graduates Join Firefighting Force

By Jacqueline Sit, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Hundreds of job applicants flood Oklahoma City's fire department each year, and Friday a special select few are joining the firefighting force.

"I'm going to take a lot of pride in this job and I know I'm going to love this job everyday for my entire career," said Oklahoma City Fire Recruit Graduate Jerod Goodwin.

Goodwin is one of the latest addition to Oklahoma City's firefighting families. For the last 15 weeks, these fire recruits tackled through tough training every day.

Nine new recruits got their badges, helmets and assignments on this graduation day. Normally a class consists of 50 recruits, but this year classes are smaller.

"It allows our training officers to give more individual one on one type training. Not that we have problem with that, smaller the class, better school education we can provide them," Oklahoma Fire Deputy Chief Cecil Clay said.

The smaller number spelled out strength in their success. This team of future firefighters landed the highest test scores average ever. Being part of this crew is a childhood dream turned reality for Goodwin.

"I just wanted to provide a service to the people and help citizens on what could be the worse days and just be able to help them in every way possible," Goodwin said.

For the next nine months these fire recruits will go through more on the job training so they can be ready to fight anything that comes their way.

"You need to become a servant to the community to be a good firefighter and we're confident that the people we've chosen will make good servants to our community," said Deputy Fire Chief Cecil Clay.