— Power of 2 —
Summer Stephenson
sstephenson@intracoastalrealty.com
910.279.6234
Susan Paulson
spaulson@intracoastalrealty.com
910.233.7970
11B East Greensboro Street
Wrightsville Beach • $599,000
14.45 acres
0 Odyssey Drive
Landfall • $1,185,000
207 Gregory Road
Windemere • $329,900
boat slip
110 Seven Oaks Court
Boat Slip • $675,000
2101 Boatswain Place
Landfall • $189,900
Pool
1507 Military Cutoff Rd, #105
Near Wrightsville • $129,900
40
WBM september 2011
of the department’s intern program
— tend to create separate bonds
within their spheres of influence, they
all work together.
“We pride ourselves on that,” says
Fire Chief Frank Smith, who comes
from a long line of firefighters, with a
career firefighting grandfather, and a
father and uncle who were volunteers.
Smith came to the department as a
volunteer before applying and accepting
the position of chief in 2003. “We
are one department made up of many
pieces, which functions as a team to
get the job done,” Smith says.
“We assign roles and responsibilities
based on training and qualifications
rather than pay status,” he adds.
“All members of the department are
required to attend the same number of
training drills, and we train as a unit.”
There is, he notes, a degree of gentle
ribbing and competitiveness that exists
between the department’s volunteers,
interns and professionals, but it vanishes
instantaneously when the job or
the training intensifies.
“It’s really different from any other
situation or job,” says Sunnie Parker,
who is presently the only female member
of the department. “It’s knowing
that if something happened, you’d lay
down your life to help them, if that’s
what it took, and that they’d do the
same for you.”
“It really is a whole different level
from anything else,” she says.
For Parker, her membership in
the brotherhood was never an issue.
While she recalled some raised eyebrows
when she first came to work
for the department in 2007, it only
took an adjustment period of about
a month for those eyebrows to
lower.
“Once I started training and they
saw I could do (the job), it was fine,”
she says. “There was some pressure
to perform in the beginning, but it
was more on me than anybody else. I
wanted them to feel comfortable.”
“Now,” she adds, life for her in the
Wrightsville Beach Fire Department is