http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-nor.shadow1feb02,0,139315.story?coll=stam-news-local-headlines
By Alexandra Fenwick
Staff Writer
February 2, 2007
NORWALK -- Groundhog Day may be today, but top city officials saw their shadows yesterday.
High school students spent the day following the mayor, police chief, fire chief and superintendent of schools to get a glimpse of their jobs.
The program, in its second year, was organized by Junior Achievement of Norwalk and the district's School to Career program.
Junior Achievement is a nonprofit organization that teaches students about free enterprise, business and economics and provides experience in the working world.
Brien McMahon High School junior Samantha Naring, 16, heard about the opportunity earlier this year at a fire and police career day at her school and was the first to hand in her application. She tagged along yesterday with Fire Chief Denis McCarthy.
It was a homecoming of sorts for Samantha, whose father, Herman Naring, worked 17 years as a dispatcher at the Charles A. Volk Central Fire Station before becoming a firefighter at the Glenbrook fire station in Stamford five years ago.
"I remember coming in here," Samantha said. "I'd be hanging out, and my dad would get calls and send the engines out."
The other job students who shadowed professionals were Dieter Tejada, a junior at Norwalk High School, who was paired with Mayor Richard Moccia; Marcus Velez and Kathleen McManus, students at Brien McMahon High School, who followed Police Chief Harry Rilling; and Jeffrey Wagner, a student at Norwalk High School, who followed Superintendent Salvatore Corda.
Thanks to her father, who shares stories about rescues and fires when he drives her to school at the end of his 24-hour shifts, Samantha is considering becoming a firefighter.
"I want to help, to make a difference," she said.
McCarthy advised her to join a volunteer fire department or work as an EMT if she is serious about a career as a firefighter. He also told her to keep up her participation in group-oriented activities such as the school band, where she plays French horn, and softball. She pitches for her school team.
"Firefighting has been described as a team sport," McCarthy said.
There are no female firefighters in Norwalk and only a handful in surrounding towns, said McCarthy, who encouraged women and minorities to apply.
"Part of it is who wants to be the first entering an all-male environment," McCarthy said. "Someone with Samantha's background and understanding of what the life of a firefighter is would probably be better prepared to be the first."
Samantha will be 18, the minimum age to apply, when the fire department holds its next round of tryouts in two years.
For now, she was happy to spend a day at the fire station. It was a slow morning, so she didn't go out on a call, but she accompanied the chief to a fire safety seminar for preschoolers at Room to Grow day care center on East Avenue, previewed plans for the department's new rescue truck due in November, and rode 70 feet above the ground in the bucket of the ladder truck.
"It was fun, a different experience, and a nice view," Samantha said.
Copyright © 2007, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.