Canyon firefighter recognized at Capitol ceremony
Long-time Martin City resident Tom Meskimen said he was quite surprised to learn he had been chosen by the Governor’s Office of Community Service and the Montana Commission on Community Service to receive a prestigious ServeMontana Award.
First Lady Lisa Bullock presented the awards to seven individuals and organizations at the state capitol on Feb. 13.
“I was shocked when I got the call about a month ago from the Governor’s Office,” he said. “I was surprised but really honored.”
It was no surprise to Ron Rabidue, the former chief of the Martin City Volunteer Fire Department — he nominated Meskimen.
“Tom goes above and beyond the call of duty, helping the fire department and seniors and lots of people in our community,” Rabidue said. “I was tickled to death to learn he was chosen. Tom sure deserves it.”
Martin City fire chief Tom Torpen said Meskimen never missed a call in 20 years as a volunteer and was the backbone of the department.
Meskimen is credited with fixing neighbors’ vehicles and homes, plowing their snow and driving them to doctor’s appointments. He also keeps the fire hall furnace running and takes care of all the fire trucks at no charge.
Meskimen, 67, has been with the rural fire department for 23 years and recently came out of retirement to serve as assistant fire chief.
“My son Monte joined first and talked me into joining,” Meskimen said.
His only firefighting experience before that was fighting forest fires in New Mexico when he was in high school.
“My family owned some sawmills in New Mexico,” he said. “Back in those days, the Forest Service sort of drafted you when a big fire started.”
Meskimen spent most of his adult life in construction. He spent 10 years in Alaska before moving to the Canyon community of Martin City in 1987. He helped build a golf course in Alaska and spent the rest of his career building golf courses across the U.S.
“I worked away from home for at least 20 years,” he said.
The small fire department faces a big task. With its winding roads and shady curves, U.S. 2 sees numerous of car crashes in winter, but the huge surge in traffic during the busy summer tourist season, when vehicles travel at much higher speeds, makes highway incidents much more deadly.
Meskimen said he can handle the sight of so many trauma victims in mangled vehicles. He spent two years with the Army in Vietnam and personally experienced the horrendous Tet Offensive.
“You get used to it after a while, but it bothers other people,” he said.
Martin City’s fire department has a solid reputation. Over the years, it has maintained a strong roster of volunteers, maintained high training standards and put those resources to work responding to fires and wrecks up and down the Canyon.
“It’s because of the original people who started the department,” Meskimen said. “It’s a close-knit town. The volunteers stayed with it, and others stepped in when the original volunteers retired.”
But times have changed — the roster is down to 18 volunteers, and only 10 of them can be relied on to show up, he said.
“The young generation won’t step up to the plate,” Meskimen said. “I had to ask Ron Rabidue to come out of retirement to help out.”
One of the hurdles to attracting volunteers is that firefighting is so time-consuming, he said.
“There’s so much training,” Meskimen said. “We meet three times a month and the training involves medical, firefighting measures, extrication from car wrecks.”
Those 10 active volunteers are getting along in age, Meskimen said. Anyone who wants to sign up with the Martin City Volunteer Fire Department can call Meskimen at 890-0652 or Torpen at 212-3954 or the fire hall at 387-5033.