Steve Moseley

Photo of Tim Kindred/canal rescue was taken April 23, 1998.

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More and more I find myself waxing nostalgic about our years in Powell. Perhaps it’s this looming 75th birthday in July.

I was sports editor at this newspaper a couple decades back; wife Norma was the orthopedic clinic’s nurse. In all, we have lived in eight communities over 54 years (she makes it 14 houses) of predominantly marital bliss.

Only one of those, yours, was in Wyoming but it is the one I miss the most.

Many aspects of Powell and its people created that affection, none more than the local fire department.

At first when I would respond to emergency scenes, I was not only a stranger from far-off Nebraska, but worse a representative of the dreaded media. I could almost hear the wheels grinding, “Who is this guy? What if he’s one of those ‘gotcha’ journalist types who get their glory from catching and sensationalizing the slip-ups of others?”

It was my job to be there, camera in hand, and the fellas knew it. No one was ever less than cordial, yet I was held at arm’s length. Historically, the Trib had a scanner in the office that shrieked like a banshee when duty called. Four of us shared scanner duty in one-week shifts, taking it home on weekends. But we didn’t always get the message. Failures on our end were too frequent. 

Dutifully, I took my turn and things went on as before in the newsroom. It didn’t take long, though, for the late Calvin Sanders, chief at the time, and his department to realize I was not the enemy. Quite the contrary, over time I revealed myself to be an advocate, one known to pitch in for traffic control at the scene if the looky-loos (firemen had their own name for them, a shortened version of excrement heads) got out of hand or even to help lug a gurney out of a bean field if a little extra heft was needed.

Then one day an unexpected surprise; Calvin came to the office and asked to chat. He wondered if I would be an honorary member. Greatly flattered, I immediately accepted. The whole department had already signed off, he said, so that was that.

A tag for my license plate to confirm my inside-the-ropes cred, as they say in golf, at all emergency scenes along with my own pager were offered up in short order. This changed the dynamic at the Trib when I volunteered to be the paper’s lone ranger for all ambulance and fire calls. Three co-workers were much relieved. I still treasure that plate. Next, I offered to carry an extra camera loaded with slide film just for their use. I used it to capture extra, projectable images for training and public presentations.

A typical example is the photo of my friend Tim Kindred crawling the ladder as his fellow first responders scrambled to fish an unfortunate motorist from the canal. This photo was color film for use in the paper, but there is a second set of transparencies the department, or in the case of a tragic two-fatality fire, the courts, could project. The bright detail on a screen was ideal for analysis to learn what they did right or might have done better. I was proud and gratified to help in that small way.

By this time, I was long since welcome any time at the fire barn. Smiles in both directions were universal now. This experience remains a journalism career highlight. Thanks for the memories, guys, and also that impenetrable, polar bear coat with my name on one side and the department logo on the other. To this day it is a Godsend when time comes to fire up the snowblower. Did you hear we had over a foot in a single week last winter? Arrgghhh!