CLEBURNE, Texas — A Texas fire department has hired a female firefighter for the first time in its 135-year history.
The Dallas Morning News reported Stephanie Pribble, 27, first applied to the Cleburne Fire Department in 2013 but needed more training. She had to retake the physical portion of the test, but she made the cut this time around.
“You look at Stephanie and it’s inspiring,” Randal Goodwin, a volunteer firefighter who worked with Pribble, said. “You look at how hard she worked to achieve her dream and did that while working a full-time job, going through the fire academy and paramedic school, not to mention being a wife and mom.”
Pribble became interested in being a firefighter and paramedic after riding in an ambulance during an emergency. After moving to Texas from South Carolina in 2009, Pribble worked as a dispatcher and rode with Cleburne firefighters to learn more about their job while she waited for her Texas EMT certification.
“They don’t just respond to calls and do their jobs,” Pribble said. “They do that, but there’s so much behind-the-scenes stuff that the public never hears about. Going out of their way to help people who have been in an accident, lost their home in a fire, mentoring children, spending time with school kids playing video games and eating pizza with them.”
Pribble said she wants to be treated the same as any other recruit in the department.
“I worked hard to get here, and every decision I’ve made the past three years helped put me into position to get here,” she said. “But, I want to be recognized as a Cleburne firefighter rather than their first female firefighter.”