Howard Scott has not just been a neighbor of the Cole County Fire Protection District, but he's also been the fire department's first chaplain - a role he hopes someone else will step up and fill in his retirement.
After today, Scott has one Sunday left as pastor of Highway 54 Church of Christ on Greenbrier Drive, which is just around a curve of the road from the Cole County Fire Protection District's administrative building on Monticello Road. Scott lives across the street from the church.
"I'll get one Christmas sermon in Dec. 1, and that will be it," he said, adding next will come a move to eastern Tennessee.
He grew up in Miami, Oklahoma, and moved to Cole County in 2008 to be pastor of Highway 54 Church of Christ.
He became the fire district's chaplain - a volunteer role, unpaid other than a small travel reimbursement - "kind of accidentally" around 2012, he said.
His brother-in-law had told him to check with the fire department to see if they needed any help, Scott said.
"He kept bugging me for a year or two, and I finally just stopped in there one day to ask, 'Is there anything I could do? Do you need a chaplain?'"
Then-deputy chief Gary Smith said, "'Absolutely. We've been hoping for one,'" Scott remembered.
"We've been connected ever since," Scott said.
He typically did not go out on fire calls.
"There were a few that I did go to, or I'd get asked to come afterwards when they'd had a particularly hard call, car wreck or bad situation where there was kind of a really rough scene. Then, we'd sit down and kind of talk among the guys who were responders, and I'd spend some time trying to talk with them that way," he said.
"We'd kind of sit in a circle, and they'd just begin to talk about it: What did we see and 'How are you feeling about that?' (and) 'How can we help you not maintain that mental image for the rest of your life?'" - the vivid memories of scenes, such as car wrecks with violent physical trauma to human bodies, Scott said.
"That was kind of the issue - at least from what I gathered from the chief and some of the others early on when I got involved - that there had not been enough context of discussions (about traumatic experiences). Everybody just kind of held it in and dealt with it themselves, and sometimes that didn't work well. Anytime you can talk about something that's bothering you, typically, it's going to make you feel better, whether you get it resolved or not, just that you can talk about it helps," he continued.
"It doesn't mean that I always have the right words or the right answers," he added. "There's times when you just struggle with that, but the fact that you're there, you're available and you want to help, I think that's what makes a difference."
There is not yet someone lined up to lead the chaplaincy after him.
"My hope and prayer is that someone in the community, the Cole County area, who is called and led to do so would step up and take the role and continue the chaplaincy service for them," Scott said.
Scott said he's found "a great blessing" in being around the firefighters he worked with, "learning about their lives and how much they give of themselves," and helping them keep their minds focused where they need to be in order to do their jobs.
He also thinks being a chaplain changed his ministry to his own church congregants. It enhanced "my prayer life, and I constantly have ever since been reminding my congregation to pray for our firemen and our policemen because of what they do," physically and emotionally, "just to be able to serve the community," he said.
"I was called (to serve) through a person, but I think God was at work," Scott said of being the Cole County Fire Protection District's chaplain.
He does not have any specific plans for ministry in his retirement, but "I would like at some point to get a Sunday preaching place just to be able to share the word of God with a congregation, somewhere where there's that need."
He added: "I'd like to help in whatever way I can in the community where I'm going to be, whether it's fire or some other way."