Joann Pearson and Tom Scott

by Submitted Brad Nelson
| July 31, 2011 3:15 PM

BEVERLY ?- Joann Pearson is the station captain for the Beverly station of Grant County Fire District No. 10.

"I've been here so long as Beverly station captain that when we get a new fire chief, they just leave me alone," she said.

Pearson likes her station. It's new and the nicest station in the district. But there is a challenge.

"It would be nice if it had a restroom," she said.

Pearson and her companion Tom Scott are retired hydro operators for the Grant County Public Utility District. Scott also is a district volunteer.

"The dam wanted young people with experience," Scott said. "I had 10 years in with Seattle City Light when I moved here, and I retired after 30 years at Grant county PUD. Only two jobs I had in my life."

Pearson and Scott are both firefighters with the fire district. Joann has training as an EMS first responder. Scott also volunteers for a fire district in Alaska.

"We have some property up there," he said. "We spend about six weeks twice a year in Alaska to take care of that. We don't say anything about the hunting and fishing."

Pearson started volunteering at Beverly with Grant County Fire District No. 9 sometime in the early 1960s. It no longer exists.

"It was just something to do," she said.

Which doesn't surprise Scott.

"She's involved in everything," he said. "She volunteered to help run the Beverly water district. She reads the meters and does the books."

Joann has even dug up and repaired broken water pipes. It grates on her when people treat her as a paid employee of the water district.

For Scott, big wild land fires are always memorable. The Beverly hotel fire is most memorable.

"When the railroad was here, there were a lot of fires started along the tracks by hot boxes," he said.

A hot box is a bearing box at the end of an axle on a railroad car when its defective. When bearing boxes run out of grease, the bearings get hot and started throwing sparks.

"The time I went to start a fire truck to move it and the truck blew up, that was quite memorable too," Scott added. "That was just last week. Actually the top of the batteries was all that blew up. Something in the battery must have shorted out."

On the pleasant side, Scott also remembers when the railroad cafŽ, the "Beanery" was here.

"They would always feed the firefighters after each fire," he recalled.

Pearson would like to see more volunteers, but she noted the work schedules of local people make it difficult to recruit.

"With the normal workday in the summer being so long and with both husband and wife working now being the norm, the time just is not there," she said.

"Back when they were building the dams, the PUD required all the employees to be part of the fire department," she added. "Even after the construction people left, we had so many volunteers that they had to ask some of the people to leave."

That was decades ago. How things have changed.

"Tom went door to door trying to get more volunteers at Wanapum Village a couple of years ago and came up empty-handed," Pearson said.

Wanapum Village is the employee housing area for PUD workers at the Wanapum and Priest Rapids Dams.

"I think the attitude of something for nothing is killing volunteerism," Scott said.

Volunteerism aside, Pearson's over-riding concern now is public support for her efforts and those of other volunteers. She noted there is a key Emergency Medical Services levy election coming up in August.

"I hope the voters realize that without continuing the EMS tax levy we could lose our ambulance," she said.