A Perry volunteer firefighter has been recognized with a state and national firefighter of the year award. 

Firefighter Travis Murphy was honored by State and National Veterans of Foreign Wars (V.F.W.) of the United States of America as the National Firefighter of the Year recipient. This comes after being selected as the State Firefighter of the Year, which Fire Chief Chris Hinds says is an honor. 

“We think it’s a great honor and we are very proud of the fact that somebody from our department was recognized that way. We have to thank Ron Leber, the local VFW representative here, who is also a state and national VFW member that nominated him for the state award and as a recipient of the state award that automatically put him in the running for the national award.”

Hinds tells Raccoon Valley Radio Murphy was selected out of entries from all fifty states as well as all U.S. territories. Hinds speaks to some of the qualities that made Murphy worthy of the award. 

“I came in one morning and he was there at the fire station painting the door. He says, ‘Well it needed to be painted and I had the paint so I stopped down and prepared the door and painted the door’ and that’s the kind of things that he does. He sees something that needs to be done, he takes the initiative and he does those kind of things.”

Murphy was honored at the State V.F.W. convention in Ames on June 4th.