By Rebecca Mitchell
Post-Bulletin
STEWARTVILLE, Minn. — There’s a common place in Ryan Podein’s childhood memories: the Stewartville fire station.
He visited the station with his dad, Mark, on countless weekdays and weekends. The lasting mark: choosing to help people through volunteering with the department. Ryan Podein is chief engineer alongside his cousin and assistant fire chie,f Josh Podein and Uncle Mike. Mark Podein retired in 2024 after 37 years with the department.
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“You have the generational things, you just instinctively have stuff passed down you’ve learned over the years from watching and helping your parents do it,” Ryan Podein said. He has served for 27 years. “That helps when you first start, some of the traditions and how the fire department operates and works.”
Thirty years. Twenty-four years. Forty-seven years. It’s common to see these longstanding firefighter commitments — their second careers that places them in emergency mode — at area volunteer fire departments such as Stewartville and St. Charles. Some have generations of families who have served for decades for the good of their neighbor.
Their service is profound and simple, like Ryan Podein said: “When the pager goes off, you just do what you can to help.”
The firefighters are part of hundreds of thousands of volunteer firefighters in the U.S. The National Volunteer Fire Council and National Fire Protection Association report 676,900, or 65% of the total 1,041,200, firefighters are volunteers as of 2020, the most recent data available. There are 18,873 volunteer fire departments and 2,785 full-time career departments and the remaining are a mixture between mostly volunteer and mostly career. The Rochester Fire Department is the main paid department in the area.
As the third generation following in the family footsteps of firefighting, Jayda Ramaker grew up around many of the firefighters serving on the Stewartville Fire Department. Her Grandpa Greg House, who remained on the department an extra year to overlap with Ramaker, started welcoming her onto the firetruck for parades when she was 12 years old.
The now North Iowa Area Community College student is a cadet with the department while studying health sciences and plans to volunteer fully by next summer. As a volunteer or paid firefighter in the future, Ramaker sees the need to support her community as well as the need for firefighters, paramedics and EMTs.
The 676,900 volunteer firefighters in 2020 was the lowest amount since 1984, though career firefighters saw a 2% increase, the NFPA reported. St. Charles, Byron, Zumbrota and Mantorville fire departments are looking for more volunteers.
“A lot of things I learned from (my Grandpa) ... was just like being able to know like yes I am a girl but I can do this too and we are strong. And there’s so many things in this world that might beat you down but you can get right back up and do them so many times again and there’s always a helping hand,” Ramaker said.
Firefighters show up on people’s worst day and they hope to make a difference. At a St. Charles training in November, the team received a thank you they never expected: a dinner from a family they helped a year ago. The night continued with virtual reality training to prepare for more ways the community might need help.
“Just helping your community because you’re out and you see somebody lose their house, lose their barn,” said St. Charles firefighter Terry Soppa. “I’d like to help them out. I’d like to do what I can.”
Terry Soppa has served for 33 years after his dad, Red Soppa, served for 34 year,s including 12 years as fire chief. Terry also has a nephew, Kenny Loftus, on the department. Red Soppa’s advice: “Don’t get hard on anybody.” There will be seasons when volunteers have more time to dedicate and seasons when they have less time, or need to shift to running the tanker more than entering the burning home.
“In the fire community, it’s a family,” Ramaker said. “Like all those guys are willing to help. Or a lot of them, they’ll come up to me and just ask me how college is going and how life is. And if I ever need help, they would always just take me out and go to lunch or dinner.”
In his second year with St. Charles Fire & Rescue, David Hanson III serves with fellow generational members including Blake Neumann and Tate Pearson. The firefighter life has been ingrained in their families, from the value of dedicating time to others to hosting community events, teaching fire prevention and having family members out on fire calls during family events.
“I’ve been told more than once that people are thankful they know the people who are showing up,” said St. Charles fire chief Scott Schossow. He’s served with the department for 18 years and his dad served on the Ridgeway Fire Department.
With his Grandpa David Hanson Sr. serving for 21 years, his advice is “remember why you’re doing it.” He is a third-generation firefighter after his dad David Hanson Jr. served for eight years.
“Nobody stays here (at the station). This isn’t our full-time jobs. Everybody has a job elsewhere,” Schossow said. “It shows our children to give back to the community in some way. They see us leave for it and they understand. You talk about community involvement way younger with them and they get it and hopefully then someday they will find a way to give back in some way.”
As volunteers, the firefighters pause their jobs like Ryan and Josh Podein at Podein’s Power Equipment or Greg House at House Chevrolet in Stewartville. Both businesses neighbor the fire station. Ryan Podein said “everybody’s got to balance family time and fire department time and work time and sometimes there just isn’t enough time in the day to balance it all out.”
Josh Podein said a routine medical call is at least 30 minutes. The emergency fire call or car crash could be hours.
House said “It’s carved out that every Monday night is designated for the fire department.” Stewartville firefighters have training weekly for about two to three hours. St. Charles firefighters have meetings and training twice a month.
While serving with fellow firefighters for decades, each finds their strong points such as driving and repairing the trucks. After carrying on in his dad Bob House’s footsteps, Greg House added engineer to his duties. The engineers drive the trucks and supply water.
“It’s one of those things it’s very satisfying when you can save an individual’s life whether it be CPR ... and you can see them walking on the street,” House said. He is retiring in January 2026.
As chief engineer and assistant fire chief, “we’ve shared the front of fire trucks a fair amount of times over the years,” Ryan Podein said. “I hope we can continue to do it another 20 some years.” He said it’s “comforting” to have family members to lean on and ask questions while serving together.
“You build a lot of trust in any of the members on the department but then when you come back from calls it’s somebody to talk to also,” Josh Podein said.
Whether serving with the fire department or service organizations, Ryan Podein encourages people to volunteer.
“A lot of it runs off of dedication and passion on volunteer fire departments,” Ryan Podein said.
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