Marion Firefighter Jeffrey Cook to Retire after 25 Years Share

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This Thurs­day is the last day of duty for Fire­fight­er Jef­frey Cook who will retire from the Mar­i­on Fire Depart­ment after serv­ing 25 years.

Cook was born and raised in Mar­i­on and grad­u­at­ed from Mar­i­on High School. After 6 years work­ing for Seyfert Pota­to Chips in Mar­i­on, he was hired as a Fire­fight­er for the Mar­i­on Fire Depart­ment in 1992. Cook said being a fire­fight­er was a long­time dream. He explained took him 10 years before he achieved a fire­fight­er position.

Cook took class­es at IU Koko­mo and com­plete var­i­ous train­ing dur­ing his time as a fire­fight­er. Cook served as an EMT and CPR Instruc­tor for MFD for 23 years, and as a Haz­mat Tech­ni­cian for 12 years.

“Cook real­ly shined as an EMT and CPR Instruc­tor. I also appre­ci­ate his thor­ough report­ing sys­tem,” said Mar­i­on Fire Chief Geoff Williams.

Cook said, ​“It’s been an hon­or to serve the com­mu­ni­ty I was born in. It’s grat­i­fy­ing to help peo­ple who I know and know me. There are many sto­ries I will hold and mem­o­ries I wouldn’t trade for the world.” He added, ​“It has been a dif­fi­cult month and I want to say my thoughts and prayers are with my fel­low fire­fight­ers and their fam­i­lies who are strug­gling right now.”

Soon after retire­ment, Cook will begin a new job with White’s Res­i­den­tial Fam­i­ly Ser­vices work­ing as a House Par­ent to reha­bil­i­tate trou­bled teens.

Cook also explained it has been five years since he was diag­nosed with throat can­cer. He has his final scan this year to con­clude that he has offi­cial­ly won that battle.

“My advice to any­body is to not give up. I want to thank for­mer chief, Richard School­man, for bring­ing me on, as well as for­mer chief Mike Hutch­e­son and for­mer asst. chief Mike Bigler who gave me the con­fi­dence to do this job.”

In retire­ment and in con­sid­er­a­tion of his new sched­ule, Cook is look­ing for­ward to spend­ing more time with fam­i­ly. Cook has a wife and two sons, one of whom just moved to East St. Louis after grad­u­at­ing from IUPUI, and the oth­er will be attend­ing Ivy Tech in Mar­i­on in the fall.