BY LOUISA BARBERSIDNEY HERALD

Del Zadow sat in the Her-ald’s conference room, and on his right ring finger he wore a gold ring with a Mal-tese cross emblem, a symbol of the fire department. His family gave him the ring in 2009 for his 20th anniversary with the Sidney Volunteer Fire Department. He’s worn it every day since, even after his official retirement from the department on Jan. 3.

“It’s kind of always been in my blood,” he said. An uncle was a firefighter, a childhood friend’s father was a firefighter, and the department had always cap-tured his interest as a youth. “It didn’t matter if we were playing baseball, swimming at the pool, we’d stop what-ever we were doing, hop on our bikes and ride down just to see the fire trucks go out,” he recalled.

The native graduated from Sidney High School in 1980, and during the oil boom, he didn’t get an opportunity to join the fire squad. It wasn’t until he began working at Larson Motors (now Eagle Country Ford), whose own-ers were retired firefighters, that he was able to join. The date was May 4, 1989. “I’ll remember that day because that’s the day I joined. It was a great opportunity. It was a good thing I joined that fire department,” he said.

In his 23-plus years as a firefighter, Zadow’s wit-nessed some of the sadder circumstances that life can dish out.

About 10 years ago, on a Saturday morning, Zadow responded to a report of a house fire just a couple blocks from his house. “So I hurry up and run down there, and there were two girls standing in the yard screaming their heads off that their mom and dad were still in that house,” he recalled.

There was so much thick, black smoke emerging from the home that it was hidden. Even the windows weren’t visible. Firefighters John Seitz and Leo Balcer joined him, trying to break in the front door. A man had peeked out of a win-dow, coughing and yelling

about his wife. He didn’t know where she was, but he refused to leave the burn-ing building. He continued to stick his head out of the window from time to time to

get some air before return-ing inside. Zadow was finally able to grab ahold of the man and drag him outside. He later learned the wife had died just 15 feet from the front door, presumably as she tried to talk to emergen-cy dispatchers.

“We just couldn’t save her,” Zadow said. “You felt bad and helpless that we couldn’t get to her. We tried. We did the best we could, but we got one out, so that’s good. At least the girls have their dad still.”

While burning buildings

are part of the job, here on the plains, grass fires can be nasty, and Zadow’s seen plenty of them.

He won’t ever forget one Halloween night a little more than a decade ago when a forceful wind came out of nowhere and whipped east across the river. “That fire went for days and days. Burned about 11 miles long and three miles wide, but I’ll never forget pulling up on that fire, getting in the pickup with the other chief and just watching that thing go over the hill just so fast and so big already because the wind was blowing steady probably 40, 50 miles an hour,” he said. The fire didn’t stop until it reached North Dakota. More than 100 volunteer firefighters from neighboring communi-ties joined Sidney firefight-ers in extinguishing the flames. “Biggest one I’d ever been to, for sure,” he said.

Witnessing many cases of loss of life and property put things into perspective: life, as he put it, is precious, and everything can change in a moment. “You realize material things are just

material things,” he said. “Long as everybody comes out safe and sound you can replace anything, but life can change in a second.”

Zadow spent 23 years on the firefighting force, 10 of those as a deputy chief. He was chosen amongst his peers because of his cool-headedness, an oft desired leadership trait. “He’s just so calm when he’s put in pressure situations,” fire-fighter Justin King said. “He keeps his cool. His deal was we didn’t start it, but we can put it out and do the best we can.”

Longtime firefighter Seitz described Zadow as being “very dedicated, conscien-tious and levelheaded.” He was “bummed,” he said, when he learned his friend was retiring. “I called him and texted him and tried to talk him out of it,” said Seitz, who also retired, but returned just eight months later; he missed the action.

Perhaps Zadow will do the same, though he says it’s too soon to tell. It had only been two weeks on Thursday.

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SUNDAYJAN. 20, 2013105th year, No. 6Sidney, Montanawww.sidneyherald.com75 CENTS

Top 10 growers honored. Pages 1-7C.

SERVING RICHLAND COUNTY AND THE SURROUNDING AREA FOR 105 YEARS

Bulletin BoardSenior commodities

Distribution of commodi-ties for senior citizens is from 9 a.m. to noon Tuesday at the Nutter Building.

Blood driveThe American Red Cross

will hold a blood drive from 1-6 p.m. Tuesday at the St. Matthew’s Parish Center. To schedule your appointment or for more information, call 1-800-695-7258. Identifica-tion is required to donate.

LVA meetingThe Richland County

Literacy Volunteers of America has its annual meeting Jan. 30 at 7 p.m. at the USDA-ARS center. A business meeting will fol-low the annual meeting.

Red HattersThe Richland Red Hatters

will meet at 11:30 a.m. Thur-say at Panini’s Pizzeria. RSVP by Tuesday by calling Margaret Bradley, 488-4613.

Chamber banquetThe Sidney Area Chamber

of Commerce and Agricul-ture announces the annual banquet will be held at The Fringe at the Sidney Coun-try Club on Monday. The no-host social is at 6 p.m., with the dinner to start at 6:30.

Highlighting this year’s event is a keynote address by Holly Hoffman, Eureka, S.D. Besides being a ranch wife and swim coach, Hoff-man was a contestant on Season 21 Survivor Nicara-gua. She was the last woman standing and the last mem-ber of the Espada Tribe in the game.

Hoffman will share her “Survivor” experience with an uplifting message that will relate to the people of the Sidney area quite well.

Tickets are available at the chamber office. Price is $40 the day of the banquet. The chamber can be reached at 433-1916.

DeathsCherri Lynn Finsaas, 54

Kelby Indergard, 17Michael John Jones, 71

Bertha “Bette” Sorensen, 81Page 3A, 6A

Inside

Drilling rig count

Source: Rocky Mountain Oil Journalsponsored by

Montana 9 North Dakota 174

Wyoming 50

Agriculture .........5AAround Town .....2AClassifieds .......4-7BDeaths ...............3A

Learning ............7AReligion .............8CSports .............1-3B

BY BILL VANDER WEELESIDNEY HERALD

Something’s happening in the Savage community now that hasn’t happened since probably the 1970s.

Chasity Adsit, Angie Nel-son and April McPherson are the leaders of Cub Scout Pack 181.

“We had some kids inter-ested and didn’t want to do the extra traveling of going to Sidney and back,” Nelson said. Her guess is it’s the first Cub Scout troop in the community since the mid 1970s.

The troop has a char-ter with First Lutheran Church. The church serves as the group’s meeting place each Monday night.

Adsit explains the pro-cess began when Scout-ing officials in Sidney inquired about the interest of Savage’s students in the program. Savage’s parents meet with Sidney’s Scouting officials to discuss options.

“The three of us moms decided we had enough in-terest to start our own troop in Savage,” Adsit said.

The troop in Savage con-sists of 11 elementary stu-dents in grades 1-5. “There are pretty spread out,” Adsit said of their grade levels.

The boys are gaining no-tice by conducting the flag ceremony prior to Savage High School’s basketball games.

“It’s been great,” Adsit said. “We’ve heard a lot of compliments about the flag ceremony. The community really enjoys it.”

The community is taking an active part in the troop’s success. Every third Mon-day, a resident attends a Cub Scout meeting to teach a skill such as knot tying.

“They all have earned their Bobcat badge,” Adsit said of the Cub Scouts. “It kinda tells everyone that they know their motto and did the flag ceremony.”

With four fifth-graders,

Savage may look into adding a Boy Scout troop for next school year.

The future for this year is expected to include lessons

in archery and setting up tents and then probably a summer camping experi-ence.

“To have all women (as

leaders), we’re also learning with the boys because we did the Girl Scout thing,” Adsit said.

BILL VANDER WEELE | SIDNEY HERALD

In their first year, Cub Scout Troop 181 in Savage performs a flag ceremony prior to high school basketball games.

Cub Scouts making mark in Savage community

Veteran firefighter retires from department after 23 yearsDedicated volunteer

LOUISA BARBER | SIDNEY HERALD

Two weeks after his retirement, Del Zadow says he hasn’t yet become used to ignoring the fire siren.

‘You realize material

things are just

material things.’

Del ZadowRetired firefighter

BY LOUISA BARBERSIDNEY HERALD

The agreement’s been drawn up, all parties have voiced their grievances, and now all that’s needed is a John Hancock from Sidney’s mayor.

“We’ve just been hand-cuffed,” Public Works director Jeff Hintz said after a conference with state officials on the sewer lagoon. On Jan. 10, the city water department met via the phone with the Montana Department of Environmen-tal Quality’s Enforcement Division and Oil and Gas ad-ministrators, along with the city’s appointed engineer, Pat Murtagh of Murtagh Municipal Engineering, to review what’s happened so far, what the city can expect from the department as far as violations, and future deadlines.

The agreement between the state and the city, an administrative order on consent, is about to be signed by the mayor, with the city council’s approval. The AOC keeps the state from seek-ing penalties for violations provided the city agrees to a timeline that will get the sewer lagoon back into com-pliance.

During the meeting, Mur-tagh requested state officials remove a clause that re-quires the city to give up any rights to challenge what the state may recommend. That request was not granted due to the state’s leverage to get the lagoon into compliance. However, the DEQ did say they would insert language that says it recognizes 12 years of groundwater monitoring data that show its discharging into ground-water hasn’t been harmful to public health and safety.

This is the latest in a long-awaited disciplinary action that the city of Sidney has been expecting. Since 1980, the lagoon has been operat-ing without a discharge permit. The state knew that,

City’s stepcloser toagreementwith DEQ

SEE AGREEMENT, PAGE 12ASEE ZADOW, PAGE 12A