City of Lincoln Firefighter makes history
Savannah Conrady first ever winner of the Clark-Rutledge Firemanship Award

 

[December 06, 2022] 

This week Lincoln Fire Chief Bob Dunovsky shared that the newest firefighter in the department, Savannah Conrady is nearing the completion of her seven-week fire academy training in Champaign. During that training, Conrady accomplished something that has never been accomplished among firefighters in the local department. She was announced at the class awards ceremony as the Fall 2022 winner of the Clark-Rutledge Firemanship Award.

Conrady was approved by the Lincoln City Council as a new hire for the department in August of this year. At that time, she made local history as the first female firefighter for the city.

For Conrady, being a female is no big deal, and something she doesn’t particularly care to have pointed out. She feels that she is a firefighter because she has a passion for serving and helping others. She also thinks that we are in an age where that gender doesn’t matter nearly as much as passion and ability.

Conrady is a Logan County native from Hartsburg. She is the daughter of Greg and Lisa Conrady. She said that her passion for being a firefighter began very early in her education, when the local volunteer firefighters would visit Hartsburg-Emden School and talk to the kids about fire safety and the jobs of the firefighters.

She said she noted that as a volunteer department, many of the firefighters were approaching that time when they would be aging out of the department. She saw that to keep the local department going, younger people needed to step up.

She grew up learning that to just talk about what is needed is not enough, people need to take action and be the ones who instead of saying “someone should,” saying “I will.”

Consequently, when she was 15 years old, she began volunteering with the Hartsburg department. Later, she became a volunteer firefighter for the Lincoln Rural Fire Protection District and had the opportunity to volunteer with the Sherman Fire Department.

In her time as a volunteer, she learned a lot about the firefighter process and realized that as a female she didn’t always have the physical strength of her male counterparts. She started training and learning methods of adjusting how she performed during a call to compensate for the physical differences.

Conrady did figure it all out and was a valued member of the volunteer departments she served according to Dunovsky. He said that when the city department had a call for new hires, he reached out to Conrady and invited her to apply.

He said that there was an early test that Conrady had to take to qualify for the department. Some of the testing was to be done online, but at the time of her testing, there was a glitch in the online test, so she traveled out of town to take the test. She then had to test for physical ability and she did not pass. Dunosvky said Conrady became more driven with that first stumble. She began training harder and in no time at all she was ready to give it a second go and this time she passed.

When Conrady was hired into the department, it was a couple of weeks before the next academic class. She began training and preparing for what she knew lay ahead for her, and she was well prepared when the time came for the seven-week course.

The academy takes place in Champaign, and the cadet must stay at the academy during the training. Conrady said it was a rigorous training, that began at 6 a.m. each morning with Physical Training, then went into academics in the classroom and finally hands on training in firefighting exercises.

Training included structural fires, vehicle extrication, and control of hazardous materials situations. Conrady said perhaps her favorite things about academy was working the burn situations. She said it was a controlled environment and because they did the exercises frequently it gave her a lot of experience in different scenarios. Dunovsky explained the academy campus offers a wide gamit of burn situations including single family homes, apartment buildings, and even a scenario that includes firefighting in a city setting where there are multiple businesses and a wide variety of issues that have to be addressed simultaneously.

The city of Lincoln requires each new hire, regardless of their previous experience to attend the Illinois Fire Service Institute Academy in Champaign. Dunovsky said it is tough. He recalled a firefighter who didn’t make it past the second day.

He said that with each one who attends, he gets calls from the academy on a regular basis with progress reports about the cadet. Typically, those calls will include a report of what is going well for the student, and areas where the student needs to be improving. Dunovsky said that is the expectation with each firefighter sent to academy.

However, he said with Conrady, there was not one area where it was suggested she could do better. The regular updates were always about how well she was doing, how she was improving on her own, and how she was always going above and beyond to be a part of the team.

When Dunovsky attended the academy awards ceremony, he did not know until he got there that Conrady was going to be given the prestigious award. He was pulled aside at the door and talked about it, and it was listed on the program for the day. Conrady also did not know. The programs were not given to the students, and they were sequestered away from incoming guests prior to the beginning of the event.

Conrady said when the announcement was made, it was such a shock to her that she hardly remembers what happened. She said afterward a lot of her fellow cadets congratulated her and that is about all she really recalls about it all.



Dunovsky said that the award is elite. According to a printout he provided the Clark-Rutledge Firemanship Award is named for two firefighters, Jack Rutledge and David Clark. The award is for “mastery of basic firefighting skills on par or above performance levels of his/her peers. The criteria include positive attitude, firefighting skills, technical skills, social skills, ethics, behavior, leadership skills, unselfishness, dependability, enthusiasm, initiative, and number of performance evaluations passed on the first attempt.”

“The student who receives this award have been agreed upon by the instructors, program manager and assistant director of firefighting programs and that they believe this student has the leadership traits necessary to be highly successful in the fire service.”
 

Dunovsky said there are three other awards that a student may receive including one for excellence in the academic portion of the training. Lincoln Firefighter James Cosby received the academic award when he attended academy. But before Conrady, no Lincoln Firefighter has won the Clark-Rutledge Award.

Conrady said that her experience at the academy was hard, and tested her daily, but she enjoyed it. She liked the hands-on burn exercises, she enjoyed the interaction with other students, and she made friendships that she is hopeful will last a lifetime.

The Illinois Fire Service Institute Academy is open to qualifying firefighters throughout the United States. This year, enrollment began with 60 students and ended with 53 graduates. Included in the enrollment were students from throughout Illinois, Iowa and event four from Alaska. Among the 53 Conrady was one of four female students, including one female from Alaska who won the “most improved” award.

When asked to comment on the achievement, Dunovsky said, “This is not my moment. Savannah deserves all the credit for what she has accomplished, we just provided her the opportunity. She did all the work.”

Conrady said she has had tremendous support from family and friends since she was a kid. Her parents were not shocked when she said that firefighting was going to be a career choice, as it was all she had ever talked about. They support her fully in all her efforts.

She said, “I just want to say thank you to everyone for all their support from the time I was a kid to right now.”

Asked if this was a career she would want her children, and specifically a daughter to enter, Conrady said that she would want her kids to do whatever they set their mind to. She emphasized that gender doesn’t matter nearly as much as passion and commitment.

Conrady has a couple more weeks of academy, and then she will be presented to the Lincoln City Council and designated as a full-fledged firefighter ready to be assigned to a shift with the department.

Congratulations to Savannah Conrady for her accomplishments, and best wishes to her as she furthers her career with the Lincoln City Fire Department.

[Nila Smith]