Macye Farrar, News Editor
Fire Chief Terry Smith has been a firefighter since 1983, when he joined the Junior Explorer Fire Department. He was only 16 at the time. He said, “They asked me to come train with them one day when I met them, so from there it just took off. Got my mom to sign the paperwork and then I was in the volunteer fire department and training with them.” Ever since then, he has been an active volunteer firefighter.
The small town of Hardeeville, South Carolina heavily influenced Smith’s sense of duty.
They emphasized giving back to the community through service. Smith said, “It was a small town and had one station with seven pieces of equipment. About 35 volunteers and they make you feel at home. They want you to learn, but at the same time they really want you to stay there and contribute back. So they put a lot of time and effort into me, and I put a lot of time and effort into them.”
He was also drawn to firefighting in particular because of the responsibility and unique community that it provided. “It’s a family-type atmosphere where everybody cares about each other. We have to rely on each other in an emergency. So it’s a different kind of bond than a normal job because when you’re training together and you see so many different things, good and bad, you have to rely on each other so much.”
His passion for firefighting grew as he continued working at various departments around South Carolina. At 18, he worked at Hardee Fire Department and then held a position at the Hilton Head Fire Department.
But soon after, he moved to Murfreesboro so he could work closer to his father. For the next five years, he managed retail stores around the area. But his love for firefighting never left him. “Since that year I started,” he said, “I never left being a volunteer. Whatever area I moved to, I always found that volunteer fire department to go back to. When something gives so much to you, it’s obvious that they help me, so why can’t I give that much back to them.”
Following his father’s passing, he went back to firefighting full time in 1996. He spent the next 27-and-a-half years working with the Murfreesboro Fire Department and the Tennessee Fire Academy. His passions lay with teaching other volunteers and full-time firefighters more skills to better help them in the field. He earned the title of Captain and Training and Safety Officer by the time that he retired in 2023.
Through his job as training officer, Smith was able to familiarize himself with the Domain long before he became Sewanee’s Volunteer Fire Chief. Smith remembered that, around 20 years ago, he first came to the Mountain to teach different types of classes. Sewanee wanted him specifically because of how close he was to the campus.
He was drawn to Sewanee for the friendly and open community. “What brought me to Sewanee after I retired from Murfreesboro was the caringness of the people. People really care about each other up here. I think I’ve been here since September of last year, or about fifteen and half months.”
This led him to become Sewanee’s new Volunteer Fire Chief in September 2023. He and his wife eagerly moved four miles away from the department and have lived there ever since. Smith is also the department’s first full-time chief. This allowed him to dedicate his time to improving training and becoming more cost effective for the university.
During his time, the fire department received two major grants that improved the department’s efficiency. “We received two grants from the last fourteen, fifteen months. One for a little over $40,000 , and we just received another grant for $70,000 from the state of Tennessee. The $40,000 grant went to buy self-contained breathing apparatuses that firefighters wear on their back, which makes us more effective on the ground for rescue. The last one was to replace the cascade-system that fills those cylinders that was thirty years old. By getting that grant, that also reduces the cost to the university.”
Smith has also placed a heavier focus on training to decrease liability. As a training officer, he finds that he enjoys teaching volunteers to be one of the most important aspects of the department. “Our average training night,” he said, “is between twenty five people, which is really large for a volunteer fire department, and that comes from the commitment of the firefighters and all the officers towards each other and the community.”
He also applauded the volunteers for their willingness to serve their community despite their lives as students and full-time workers. “You put in what you want to put out. We’ve got 47 volunteers, and it’s extremely tough because you have 18 of those at the end of each year that are students. They have an intense school schedule and the amount of hours they put into the fire department and the amount of hours that our community members that live around here put in while working 10 hour jobs is unbelievable.”
Though he has only worked at Sewanee for a little over a year, he has already made a huge impact on the people he teaches. Canale Site Leader Claire Chiles spoke about what she has learned from him. “What I’ve learned from him so far is the value of the team and knowing who can do what you need and how you can help other people. He’s almost assembled this team that has made the department better, but also the university [and] the community.”