OKEECHOBEE — Keith Tomey is originally from southern Indiana. He spent four and a half years in the Navy as a parachute rigger (now called survival technician). He was stationed in Brunswick, Ga., for four years and spent his time packing parachutes. “I got to smell the best of the best,” he laughed. “With the pulp mills and everything up there, I had no sinus problems back then.”

Tomey moved to Florida with his first wife, because his father-in-law owned a grocery store in Fort Lauderdale. While Tomey was in the Navy, he was stationed in an area without snow, and when he went home, it started snowing. He said, “There are places in this world where it does not snow, so therefore, I’m heading south!”

He was divorced in 1969 and remarried in 1971. He and his wife, Kathy, celebrate 50 years of marriage this coming year. He worked for the Shell Oil Company when he met Kathy, but a close friend of theirs asked him to join the fire department in the City of Sunrise. The city was just starting up its fire service after using volunteers for years. The friend was appointed chief and wanted Tomey to work with him. Tomey spent seven and a half years there before moving to Okeechobee and becoming assistant chief at the Okeechobee City Fire Department in 1977. In 1979, he took over as chief and retired in 2004 with 25 years of service to the city of Okeechobee.

The ending of the city fire department is upsetting to Tomey. “They are just giving it away,” he said. “The economic council tried it 20-30 years ago, and I fought them. I proved to the city council and city taxpayers that it’s like a piece of pie. It looks great on the top, but when you get down to the ingredients, if you don’t like it, it ain’t worth anything.” Tomey went on to say he believes the city council will regret its decision. “In three years, they are going to be so sorry they did it. It’s not going to be funny. All they see is the surface. They are going to save money right now, but they aren’t really going to save money. Then after the agreement runs out, the county can do what they want to. Once they give everything away, there is no going back, even if they wanted to change their minds in three years or five years, they won’t have the equipment or trucks anymore. It will be too expensive to buy it all again. A class A pumper runs almost $1 million now. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, and the city taxpayers will pay the price.”

He said from what he remembered, a city/county merge was placed on the ballot twice already and voted down both times. “You would think once it’s voted down twice, they would forget about it. I don’t understand it.”

Tomey said he tries to stay out of it as much as possible, because it is so upsetting to him.

Since his retirement, he spends his time with Kathy and at the Shrine Club where he has been a member since 1982 and now serves as its president.