How many times have you been visiting with a fireman when he gets “paged” and must hurry off to some kind of emergency? It’s probably extra annoying to a wife and family when they’re at a special event.

The scenario recently happened during the most unusual place and timing possible …the Firemen’s very own Award Dinner at their very own Community Center.

While they drove off to assist at a bad car crash, their families had to somewhat curb their appetites and enjoy chatting with other fire families for over an hour.

When the firefighters returned and things were back to normal, one department veteran searched his memory and reported that he didn’t think anything like that had ever happened before in the history of the department.

Wonder if that response time would have been as fast if they had been dining on prime rib at the time?

Well, if you know a Hillsboro fireman very well, you also know that it would have been, and maybe even faster.

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It seems like this column has had far too many items like this one lately.

Our sincere condolences to the family of former Walk Back Center Director Stan Nofsinger, who passed away last week.

He spent a large amount of his time on this Earth in an attempt to bring better days and new hope to folks like himself who were limited to wheelchairs or other necessary devises.

I wrote many stories and took dozens of photos in my early days at the Sentry-Enterprise, always with the help and guidance of Stan. For a while I even served on the Board along with other local residents.

I was always impressed with the can-do attitude of Stan and all the other Walk Back members and clients.

A working visit to the Walk Back Center to gather some news or photos wasn’t often a “good time,” but it was always inspiring, thanks to Stan and his associates.

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Here’s hoping that the Badgers’ Big 10 (14) championship is only the beginning of several weeks of excitement still to come. Keep your TVs tuned up ands ready to go.

There’s even more basketball victories already on the special schedule I follow!