Serving Their Community: Recent Grand Meadow grads join Fire and Rescue Team – Austin Daily Herald

By Jed Nelson

For some high school students, graduation can cause a number of thoughts and emotions to rise to the surface. They may experience a sense of uncertainty about what the future holds. With a plethora of careers to choose from, asking a high school graduate to pinpoint exactly what it is they want to do for a living can be daunting. 

But for Dalton Pischke, Emily Kelzer, and Zac Gehling, that wasn’t the case. When they graduated this past year, their plans for after high school were clear: they wanted to give back to their community. 

“(Fire and Rescue members) are pumped to have young people on to train us and teach us different things,” Pischke said. “My family loves it and are excited I’m in it. They’re all in law enforcement and are proud that I’m giving back to the community.”

Their inspiration for joining differs, but the one thing they agree on is feeling the need to give back to a community that has already done so much for them. 

“I just wanted to find a way to help out my community a little bit,” Kelzer said. “This seemed like a good way to do that.”

For Gehling, he didn’t have to look far for his inspiration.

“For me, it was because of my dad,” he said. 

Zac’s father, Joe Gehling, serves as fire chief for the Grand Meadow Fire Department.

“(Zac) grew up with it, so he always heard the pagers going off in the middle of night,” Joe said. “It never really phased him. I didn’t push him to join – I think he just got used to hanging out with the guys. We look at our emergency services as being a big family, so I think he got comfortable in this environment.”

The three joined Grand Meadow’s Fire and Rescue team while they were finishing up their senior year of high school. Pischke and Gehling joined the fire department while Kelzer joined Grand Meadow EMT and ambulance service.

Juggling school, sports, and EMS work were things each had to overcome.

“I would get done with school, go to sports, and then come right to the EMS building on meeting and training nights,” Gehling said. “If there was a call during school, I’d have to talk to the office, then leave and come back.”

Pischke stated that his experience was much like Gehling’s, but that Kelzer experienced a greater deal of difficulty in her training.

“The EMT class is a pretty hard class to get through,” she said. “Trying to juggle my last semester of high school and the class at the same time was a bit overwhelming at times, especially during finals week. But it all ended around the same time.”

Joe Gehling hopes that the three can serve as an example to other young people in the area. 

“In a way, we’re trying to make volunteering cool again,” he said. “Back when I first got on the fire department, we had six people waiting lists and now, today we have open spots. Ambulance and fire are kind of in the same boat. It feels like you have to get these younger people involved earlier otherwise life happens and they won’t be hooked. If they have an interest in helping people, then I feel like that hooks them and keeps them involved.”

For Pischke, Gehling, and Kelzer, the past feeds into the future. They realize the work they will be doing is a step in the right direction in giving back to a community that has been there for them and helped them along in their own lives.

“My plan for the future is to stick around here so I can still be on and maybe climb the ladder at some point to teach someone else when they get on,” Gehling said. 

“The community has always gave everything to me and helped me out when I was younger,” Pischke said. “It’s only fair that I help them out in return.”

“Grand Meadow is a very welcoming and helpful place, and I feel like I have been helped a lot by the community members,” Kelzer said. “I want to do my best to give back to that.”