VALDOSTA — When presenting the Firefighter of the Year Award recently, Lowndes County Board of Commissioners Chairman Rod Casey described the recipient, Jeremy Hancock, as a faithful servant of the citizens of Lowndes County. He went on to add that Hancock has been a part of Lowndes County Fire/Rescue’s North Lowndes fire district for the past three years.

“In 2008 alone, Hancock logged in excess of 200 training hours while responding to the majority of calls for service dispatched in the North Lowndes district,” Casey continued. “Hancock not only set an exemplary standard for service locally but nationally as well in that he previously served four years in the United States Air Force.”

Hancock served in the Air Force in Colorado Springs, Colo., as a satellite systems operator and worked as a firefighter in Moultrie for a year before coming to Lowndes County.

In December, Hancock will rejoin the Air Force and attend technical school to train as a space and missiles officer at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Vandenberg AFB is the headquarters of the 30th Space Wing, which manages Department of Defense space and missile testing and placing satellites into polar orbit from the West Coast, using expendable boosters.

VDT: Describe the first call for assistance you ever responded to as a firefighter with Lowndes County Fire & Rescue.

Hancock: It’s kind of hard to remember. I think it was a structure fire. An old tobacco barn had caught fire because of an electrical short. There wasn’t much left of it by the time we got there. I do remember that the smell of the burning tobacco made everyone real sick.

VDT: Share the story of your funniest moment on the job.

Hancock: A buddy of mine and I were called out on a fire. It was only his second call, and he put his helmet on backwards. We laughed a lot about that.

VDT: What was your most frightening moment as a firefighter?

Hancock: We had responded to a first call on a structure fire. The ceiling fell in and hit me. I had just gotten my black helmet at the time (denoting a year or more of service). Some of the embers rolled down my back and inside my gear, and at first I thought I was on fire. I became a stripper real quick.