Pineville City Council Honors Student of the Year, Eagle Scout, New Firefighters

The Pineville City Council honored several people at their meeting including the Rapides Parish student of the year.  ABC News’ Joel Massey has more on their stories.

Kelly Lohman, Rapides Parish Student of the Year said, “Well I consider myself absolutely honored and blessed to be recognized as Rapides Parish student of the year.  I was born and raised in Pineville, Louisiana and I am so blessed to represent my city and my parish as student of the year.”

Mayor Rich Dupree and the Pineville City Council recognized Pineville High Senior Kelly Lohman upon being named student of the year for the parish.  Lohman’s accomplishments during high school were outstanding.

“I earned a 33 on my ACT and I boast a 4.2 GPA.  I serve as student body parliamentarian carrying out parliamentary procedure for our student council who this year served as state president on the state student council board.  I have also worked very closely in the theater department and in the choir department at Pineville High School.”

Another youth honored at the meeting was Eagle Scout Nathan Price.

“Since third grade I have been in scouting in three different troops.  It’s been fun we’ve gone on campouts and it’s been a great way to meet people, connect with people and to grow closer to my friends and to God which is the mission of scouting.”

For his eagle scout project Nathan set up three drop off locations for old tattered American flags to be discarded honorably.

“I saw old flags flying on flagpoles around the city and the state just as we were driving and I thought why not have a spot for people to come and drop those off.  So now I’ve taken two old United States Postal Service mail drop boxes and repurposed those into flag retirement drop boxes located at the public library in Labuse and at the Town of Ball their town hall.  And so we have those two and then tonight I brought one to the city of Pineville.  Any of those three spots you can take old flags that can’t fly anymore, maybe they’re ripped, maybe they’re just faded but you can bring those by and we empty them and dispose of them.”

Two new Pineville firefighters we’re welcomed by the council having completed their training.  For Jaceb Paul it’s carrying on a family tradition.

“It’s always been something that I’ve wanted to do, but it’s a family tradition.  My great-grandfather was a firefighter at this department, my grandfather was a firefighter at this department.”

Paul says he is looking forward to serving the community.

“I’m really just looking to help and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do is to help people and this job being a family tradition and knowing that that’s what I can do to serve my community is what I wanted to do.”

John Newland is also joining the Pineville Fire Department bringing years of experience with the national guard to the table.

“I wanted to become a firefighter to serve my community.  Pineville I moved here in 2018 with the military and after I finished up with them felt like the obvious choice to serve my local community as a firefighter, EMT to help them out.”

Newland says he is looking forward to having a job where he can stay home with his family and also get to know his fellow firefighters and members of the community.

“Being close to home, previous job I was away a lot so I’ll be home more often time with family, time with my family on line to get to know them and serve our community.”