A Nearly Accurate History of Sunrise Beach
By Dick Hart (deceased)
Written for the 25th Anniversary Celebration of the City in November of 1998
recovered and updated in 2005 and continued by others (I hope, hjs)
Page 2 of 19
After a few homes were built, it quickly became apparent that a fire
department was needed. Bruce McNair, the city's first mayor, and Herb
Stehling obtained the proper charter needed from the state for a non-
profit organization and started what is now our volunteer fire
department. Someone donated a pickup, another actually bought an
old pumper truck and through donations and fund-raisers the genesis
of a fire department was begun. Now you talk about a slow start. First,
there were very few who were here long enough to be volunteers, and
many who were didn't want to do anything but sit on their cans. Most
people were just weekend residents anyway. It was difficult, to say the
least, to find enough people to train on the equipment so that a fire
could even be properly put out if started. However as time passed, a
few more people turned out for a meeting ever so often and were
somewhat qualified. It was in about 1979 that a house fire over on E.
Lakeshore broke out and was immediately engulfed in flames. The first
guy on the scene with the pumper, pumped it dry without putting the
lake draft into the water. Took a bit of time to get the pumper re-
primed and up and running again. Had it not been for a floating lake
pump that had been recently purchased, the house next door would
have gone but the lake pump put out enough water to save it.
Kingsland was called to pitch in and help.
Well they made our department look horrible. They had helmets and
coats and gloves and all the things that a fireman should have and our
guys looked simply ragged. On top of everything else it was about 25
degrees and everybody was freezing to death from being so wet. It
became quite apparent that our department needed to establish a new
way of doing things. First thing I did as President of the department
Board was to buy three more of those lake pumps and set out on a
fund drive. Between the annual fund drive and the efforts of the Ladies
Auxiliary, slowly enough money was put together to start buying the
necessary equipment and a regular training program was started.
Unfortunately, it took such a disaster to wake people up and realize
how important it was to have a good fire department. More people
started coming to the meetings and more donations came in. Today,
well what can I say. The Sunrise Beach Volunteer Fire Department
puts every other department in this part of the State to shame. They
make the other departments look like Smokey the Bear stomping out
cigarette butts.
Now, lets talk about the Ladies Auxiliary. Properly, their title is The
Auxiliary to the Sunrise Beach Volunteer Fire Department but I guess
that is too much of a mouthful. Gotta stop right here and say that this
was the first group of people on the beach that really got things
moving. I once addressed the Auxiliary and told them simply and
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