Times-Union
BURKET — When Kevin McSherry became fire chief for the Seward Township Fire Department in Burket, he was just 26 years old.
“I was way too young, but I had a lot of support. I had some very good assistant chiefs over the years, and as Bryce (Good) can tell you, you’ve got to delegate. You can not bite off the whole thing and chew it yourself. I’ve been so blessed and Bryce has been one of those assistant chiefs,” McSherry said.
McSherry, who joined the volunteer fire department in 1979, retired from serving as fire chief in December and Good, 35, accepted the role as the new fire chief.
“Looking back, we never have had a big water supply. We have no hydrants. Back then we had a 1,500-gallon tanker. Now we have a 3,000-gallon tanker,” McSherry said of some of the things that have changed over the years. “But, I went in my first interior attack and we had to put on air packs and get into it. You can’t wait to have it come out to you because it just ruins everything, and we didn’t have that much water. So you got to get in quick.”
One day, he recalled, a rafter fell and bounced off the side of his helmet and hit him in the shoulder. It could have really hurt him, but didn’t, so he decided to go get training.
“Back then, they called it First Class and Second Class, which is kind of like the Firefighter 1 and 2 today,” McSherry said. “I took that, and then the next step up was five categories of Master Firefighter. I started taking those because I just wanted to know what I didn’t know, and I wanted to be able to go home because early on, at that time, I had one kid on the ground, our son. Four years later we had a daughter, and I wanted to be able to go home to the kids.”
Kevin’s wife is Marsha McSherry, the Kosciusko County administrator.
“You just need to reach out and get all the training, and get it early because your life gets nothing more than busier, and these young guys, we try to tell them that and they are, ‘Oh, I can wait.’ Some of them go too fast, some of them too slow,” Kevin said.
When he joined the fire department, he came on with Chris Smalley after a fire at the Burket Grain Elevator where Smalley worked. Smalley noticed that the firefighters at the time were mostly older men and suggested he and McSherry should help them, so they both joined.
“It’s not a fit for everybody. Chris came on board and he gave us 10 years of very good service. He gave it his all, and then he just decided he paid his dues and wanted out. He just withdrew and I stayed with it,” McSherry recalled.
In his second year with the department, McSherry was made secretary because no one wanted to keep minutes. He then jumped from secretary to chief.
“You just learn on the fly, but one thing I do remember – here I am, 26 years old, and I had chiefs from Winona, Silver Lake, all over reach out to me and say, ‘If you need anything, you just say the word and we’ll be there to help you.’ I didn’t have to ask too much,” he said, calling the chiefs “wonderful people” and “brothers in the service.”
Walking away from being chief wasn’t easy, he admitted. “I know all these guys very well. Some of them since before they were babies,” he joked.
When McSherry decided to retire after more than 40 years as chief, he told Good a few days before the fire department’s Christmas party and they agreed to do the changeover at the party.
“In our election in December of 2024, I had decided I would do 2025, but I told them I would do 2025 but you guys have got to find somebody for 2026. I’ve had some health issues and I’m 67 years old now, and I didn’t want it killing me, frankly,” he said.
Good joined the volunteer fire department in Burket as soon as he turned 18 in 2009.
“At the time, mandatory Firefighter was a certification, kind of like the basics of basics to get you going, so that was an early-on class we took. I actually believe we sponsored that class here, so that was the basic first step,” Good said. “I joined and got the hook of the fire department and always kind of wanted to do that growing up anyways. It was always kind of a dream job. To fall into it volunteer-wise only gave me the foundation to follow it to go career.”
The fire service is ever-evolving and the training is constant.
“When I joined, we didn’t even run EMS calls. We were fire and auto accidents. That was it. I think we ran 70 calls a year, and we have also progressed as a department,” Good said.
McSherry said they now run 270 calls a year.
“As a volunteer, it’s tough because you have a life. You have a job and you start jumping into these trainings and it’s a time commitment, which does make it difficult when you have a family and a job. That’s the hard part to pursue into the young guys: You don’t have all this stuff. Put these eggs into this basket, and that’s the tough part. Unless those guys really, really have the drive and really want to go career,” Good said.
“My transition through the ranks over the years was a little different than Kevin’s. I was on for multiple years – seven, eight years – and then became a lieutenant. From lieutenant, I kind of hovered there for a few years, bumped up to captain, bumped up to an assistant chief and swallowed the pill to take the big seat this year,” Good stated.
In total, he’s been a volunteer firefighter for 17 years and a career firefighter with the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory for three years as of February.
As to what he’s learned from McSherry, Good said, “Honestly, Kevin has steered us in the direction that has made us what we are today. That’s just factual. There’s no if’s, and’s and but’s about that. Yes, the officers help us get there, and I have been a part of that in the previous years, but, honestly, he’s the leadership to keep us moving forward and keep our guys motivated, keep guys coming in the door.”
He said McSherry’s administration provided the tools for guys like him to be leaders and continue to pursue moving up those ranks.
“A lot of leadership value right here. He didn’t get to snake away, we keep him in our pocket,” Good said.
As to what made Good the good choice to be fire chief, McSherry stated, “His drive. He is a very particular person. Everything’s got to be just so and he’s driven until it is just so. And he’s a natural for this job, and he’s the pick. That’s what made it easier for me to step back, and I thank him for that.”
Since taking over in December, Good said there have been a lot of surprises and it’s been a busy start. “Kevin has been super supportive of making sure my sanity is still there, which has been great, but it’s been a busy start. We’ve had breakdowns. We’re still dealing with the engine situation, and there’s been a lot of things on our plate. Like Kevin said earlier, delegation is key. … For me, stepping into this role, having good officers was the only way, and we are blessed with that. We have a lot of good and good-trained firefighters on our department and I need that.”
He stated his heart is in the fire service, which is obvious as he’s a volunteer firefighter in Burket and a professional one for WWFT.
“For me, being a career firefighter only makes me a better firefighter here. Outside of being a fire chief, I get good training, I get a lot more of it than what we do on the volunteer side,” Good said. “On the flipside, that allows me and, again, we have five career firefighters. Us as the five career firefighter body can bring good training that we get day in and day out in our career life to our department to only make our department better.”
