County's first female fire chief started as a photographer

By Ginger Grantham
The Moulton Advertiser

Donna Campbell is the new Town Creek, Ala., Fire Department chief, and the first woman in Lawrence County to hold the position.

TOWN CREEK, Ala. — Town Creek has a new fire chief. In a recent meeting, the town council unanimously voted to appoint Donna Campbell to the post. That may have made history in Lawrence County.

"To my knowledge, I am the first woman fire chief Lawrence County has ever had," Campbell said. She pointed out that there are a number of women firefighters in the county.

Campbell did not grow up wanting to fight fires. In fact, she did not grow up in Lawrence County or any place close. She grew up in Lancaster, Pa. not too far from were the Amish children were killed in a schoolhouse shooting last year.

"Lancaster is about the size of Huntsivlle," Campbell said. "It is the oldest inland city in the United States."

She was still in high school at Manheim Township High when she crossed paths with singer/songwriter Sue Richards. Richards was then a backup singer for Tammy Wynette. That was in 1977.

"Sue lived in the Shoals. I met her while I was doing photography at a Tammy Wynette concert," Campbell said.

Richards and Campbell stayed in contact. Campbell moved to Alabama to work for Richards in 1982.

Campbell did photography for Richards' publishing company. She served as a personal assistant. She helped organize Richards' fan club. Campbell did whatever Richards needed her to do.

Campbell worked for Richards for just over six years before Richards stopped touring and semi-retired.

"I worked at several jobs after that," Richards said. She found that she liked the restaurant business. She worked for several restaurants in the Shoals.

In 1989, her friend Bernice Terry talked to Campbell about going into business with her. Terry, who is from Hatton, would do the cooking and Campbell would handle the management side.

In 1989, the pair took over a restaurant in Town Creek.

"We called it the Arrowhead Den," Campbell said. "I met a lot of Town Creek firemen at the restaurant. We would talk about what they did and I joined the department as a photographer. I didn't intend to fight fires."

But there came a day when there was a huge woods fire and all hands were needed to battle the blaze. Someone handed Campbell a pole with a flap on the end and instructed her to go into the woods and beat the fire out with the flap.

Still, she wasn't sure it was firefighting that she wanted to do but she did want to help the community where she had her business. She decided to become an emergency medical technician to help with rapid response.

Disaster hit her business in 1990 when the building was flooded. She closed the restaurant shortly after the flood.

She worked for a time with restaurants in the Shoals and still helps out at several restaurants from time to time.

Once she became an EMT, it just seemed natural to continue to learn about rapid response and firefighting. She became a certified firefighter after attending 160 hours of training and testing at the Fire College in Tuscaloosa in 1997- 98.

Somewhere along the line she moved permanently to Town Creek.

"I was living in the Shoals when I opened Arrowhead Den," she said.

As an EMT, Campbell worked for contractors at Trico Steel and then at International Paper. But she became more involved in firefighting and continued to go to school.

She has earned 25 college credits in fire science classes and earned her fire science and fire management diploma in 2006. She also graduated in May from Northwest-Shoals Community College with a certification in fire science.

She is a CPR instructor, has harzardous materials awareness and operations certification, is a certified weather spotter and a certified radiological emergency worker, to name a few of the areas she has studied.

Campbell is also certified in emergency medical dispatch and since April of 2006, has been a night dispatcher for Lawrence County 911.

As a member of the Town Creek Volunteer Fire Department, she has held a number of positions and has worked to write grants for the department to receive funds for equipment and training. And she has served at the acting fire chief.

Campbell may have grown up in Pennsylvania but she does not see herself ever going back there to live even though she still has family there. Her mother and brother are there but her father died about five years ago. But she does visit her home town.

"I have lots of cousins," she laughed. "I like it here. It is so much cheaper living here."

Donna shares here home with Bonkers, her sixteen-year-old cat. She also has two dogs who live outside.

"I love to travel," she said. "I want to visit the Dakotas and Wyoming and go back to Colorado," she said. "The best trip I have ever had was to Colorado Springs and Pike's Peak."

As the new fire chief in Town Creek, Campbell said she wants to work to get the ISO rating lowered in Town Creek.

"We are a seven now and I would like to get that lower to benefit everyone," she said. She also pointed out that everyone should check with their insurance company to make sure the company has the right ISO rating on your property.

"One woman checked and the insurance company told her the rating was a ten. That wasn't correct and we got it straightened out and saved her money on her insurance," Campbell said.

She is proud of her fire department and her slate of officers.

"Robert Norton is my assistant chief," she said. "J. W. Parker is the captain. Angie Norton is the lieutenant. Mary Harbin is the rapid response captain. Janet Parker is safety officer and Tina Posey is the secretary."

The key to the success of the fire department in Town Creek is that "we all work together" Campbell said. "We are a good group but we aren't all always around because of jobs."

Campbell knows that volunteer fire departments need all the help they can get. Even though she lives in Town Creek, she is also a member of neighboring Courtland's fire department. Cooperation is important. Campbell said she wants to do something that is a benefit to the community.

On the lighter side, Campbell said that an important part of her duties as a fireman is to be the reindeer and the Dalmatian fire dog for parades and special events.

"That's me in the costumes," she said.

Campbell said she likes the sound of siren and she enjoys the rush she get fighting a fire. She also likes investigating fires to see how they started. It is like fitting together the pieces of a puzzle.