VIDEO: When a bell rings it signals to firefighters that the emergency is over. On Tuesday, April 13th, it signaled the end of Charles "Punk" Smith's decades long service as a firefighter.
"Punk was the kind of person that everybody that he taught, they walked away telling you to respect fire, respect what it could do but not to fear it. He taught you to work together as a team and taught you that your leader was only as good as a team behind you and he always emphasized teamwork. Working with Punk, you know, it's just hard to measure how big of an impact his had on so many people," Rondale Ratcliff said. Hard to measure but easy to see as multiple fire departments from across the state paid one final tribute to a man who taught them so much. A line of engines carried Smith's casket to his final resting place.
"It was a tribute that he deserved and it's probably one that he would've never told you he wanted and one that he would have never asked for because he was very humble," Ratcliff said.