Plant City Observer
y Observer
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VOLUME 10, NO. 45
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TRACI DURRANCE
FREE • THURSDAY, MAY 18, 2023
NAMED NEWEST PRINCIPAL AT PLANT CITY HIGH SCHOOL AS SUSAN SULLIVAN RETIRES
AFTER SERVING AS THE PRINCIPAL AT TOMLIN MIDDLE SCHOOL SINCE 2009, DURRANCE WILL RETURN TO PCHS AS THEIR NEWEST PRINCIPAL.
TAYLOR JENKINS STAFF WRITER
Following Susan Sullivan’s announcement that she will be retiring at the conclusion of the 2022-2023 school year, her eighth year of ser-
vice as the principal at Plant City High School, the school has announced that Traci Durrance will be named the newest principal at PCHS. Sullivan began her career as an instructor at PCHS and also taught at Marshall Middle School before returning to PCHS as a guidance counselor in 1998, serving as a guidance and
career counselor until 2001 when she departed to join Tomlin Middle School as an administrator. She was promoted to principal at Tomlin in 2008, a role she held until 2015 when she once again made her way back to PCHS as principal.
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PLANT CITY FIRE RESCUE ADDS
NEW FIRE TRUCK TO DEPARTMENT’S FLEET
THE STATE-OF-THE-ART TRUCK ALSO FEATURES HYDROCARBON-FREE, BATTERYPOWERED TOOLS TO HELP FIREFIGHTERS RESPOND MORE QUICKLY IN EMERGENCIES.
Traci Durrance
JOURNEY
HAS ARRIVED
CELEBRATING MEMBERS OF THE CLASS OF 2023 FROM LOCAL HIGH SCHOOLS
As the community continues to grow, the service life the Department squeezes out of its vehicles is reduced, thanks to the increasing number of emergency calls it responds to and more miles it puts on them. “If we get 15 years out of a vehicle now we’ll be doing good,” said Burnett. The Department has a new ladder truck on order to replace a 2010 model but Burnett doesn’t expect delivery unCELEBRATING MEMBERS OF THE CLASS til 2025 because of supply chain issues OF 2023 FROM LOCAL HIGH SCHOOLS and labor shortages. Another vehicle feature, tucked in its back compartments, are batterypowered tools. From the jaws-of-life to lights, saws to fans, the tools no longer have cords that need to be plugged into generators or tanks requiring gasoline and oil. “The tools are hydrocarbonfree and charge right off the truck it’s instant power,” said Division Chief Dustin Hill. The battery-powered tools deliver maximum power with more speed, fl xibility and control and require less maintenance. They’re also safer to use inside buildings. “When we use the fans to blow smoke out of a building, the gas powered fans produce exhaust whereas the battery-powered fans don’t,” said Hill. Plant City Observer At the end of the day, though, it’s all about the speed at which personnel YOUR HOMETOWN. YOUR NEWSPAPER YO UR HOME TOWN . YO UR NEWSPAP ER . can respond to an emergency. “Minutes matter because time is life, that goes for medical and fi e,” said Hill. “The batteries provide a pretty instantaneous power source and help us do our jobs more quickly.”
JOURNEY
THURSDAY, MAY 18, 2023
MICHELLE CACERES STAFF WRITER
It’s got that ‘new car’ smell. Plant City Fire Rescue’s newest fi e engine, a Pierce Saber diesel fi e truck, was put in service at Fire Station 2. Fire Chief David Burnett said the truck is part of a staggered plan to replace its aging fleet o make sure the Department continues to provide quick and efficient ervice to local residents. “It doesn’t make good business sense to replace all the trucks at the same time so we’re trying to make sure we don’t hit the coffers all at the same
time,” he said. The fi e engine cost a little more than $500,000. From bumper to bumper, the Department’s truck committee customized the vehicle specifi ally for Plant City Fire Rescue. “The guys running the truck had huge input,” said Burnett. “The committee talked about what works and what doesn’t, what we can improve, even down to the size of the compartments and what tools will go in them.” The Department’s fleet onsists of two fi e engines, a ladder truck and two ambulances along with back-up vehicles in the event its primary vehicles are inoperable. The vehicles being replaced are more than 20 years old.
Plant City Observer
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