Isabella Fire honors the Conways for years of service

The Isabella Volunteer Fire Department honored David Conway and the Conway family for their years of sacrifice and service to the department during their annual Christmas party earlier in December.

“With this being our 50th year, we wanted to really honor Mr Conway for his years of service over the years and the Conway family overall… they’ve been instrumental,” Assistant Fire Chief and training officer for the Isabella fire department, Landon Lowrey, said. “We just wanted to kind of return a thank you from the fire department and the community to him.”

David Conway worked for the volunteer fire department in every sort of way. Throughout the years, David Conway was a founding member, a firefighter, the chief of the department and the board president of the fire department.

“Over the years, it would have potentially kind of dissolved, (but David Conway) was always there,” said Lowrey.

David Conway’s father, Gordon Conway, was the principal at Isabella High School when he realized the community's need for a fire department. Gordon and David Conway were among the founding members of the Isabella Fire Department.

“There’s a very small percentage of the United States covered by municipal or a paid full-time fire department, and tax space just doesn’t allow for paid fire departments to cover every single home, so it's on community members inside every community to run fire departments,” said Lowrey.

During the Christmas party, David Conway was honored with a plaque recognizing his years of service. David Conway, who had been recently battling some health issues and spending some time at the UAB St. Vincent’s Chilton hospital on rehabilitation, was able to get out for the night to be surprised with the plaque.

“It was a complete shock to him; it was something that he and his family didn’t know was going on,” said Lowrey.

The current fire chief of the Isabella Volunteer Fire Department is Brent Conway, and Brent Conway’s son, Colton Conway, also works for the department. The fire department decided to vote on dedicating their recently purchased used fire truck from Brindlee Mountain Fire Apparatus to the entire Conway family.

“That Conway family has always been kind of a cornerstone of the community,” said Lowrey.