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By Neil B. McGahee

Managing Editor

When Crisp County firefighters visited his kindergarten class at Blackshear Trail Elementary, Jamal Hoskins knew immediately that he wanted to be a firefighter.

“In my junior year in high school,” Hoskins said. “I started going to the county fire station and just hung out. I met Chief (Michael) Postell and he started showing me all the equipment and encouraged me consider firefighting as a career.”

Hoskins, an all-state wrestler, graduated from Crisp County High School in May.  By July, he had signed on as a rookie firefighter with the Cordele Fire Department.

But first, he is required to attend the Georgia Fire Academy in Forsyth, Georgia for eight weeks of basic firefighter training.

“When we bring in a new firefighter,” Cordele Fire Chief Augusta Telfair said, “We try to give him as much hands-on instruction here before he leaves for the academy.”

During that time Telfair said Hoskins is allowed to ride on the truck on a fire call, but he can’t enter the structure.

“I don’t know what I will pursue in the future,” he said. “But I will always be working as a firefighter.”