Fire district dedicates new engine to Jayme King (Updated with more photos.)

Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter

 

Throughout her four-year battle with cancer, Jayme King’s courage and positive attitude served as an inspiration to all who knew her.

Tuesday, the North Lyon County Fire Protection District dedicated its new Type 3 fire engine to the memory of Jayme King, with the hopes that it and the firefighters who use it will serve and inspire in the ways that became her hallmark.

“She made a difference in life,” said Ralph Dunn, King’s basketball coach at Fernley High School for four years. “This truck hopefully will do the same.”

According to firefighter customs, the staff and volunteers of the North Lyon County Fire Department pushed the fire truck into the bay at the district’s Station 61 on Main St. to begin the ceremony. Fire Chief Scott Huntley talked of the dedication of the volunteers and staff of the fire department, its board of directors and many people in the community.

“It’s their endless goodness that makes our country great,” Huntley said.

Reverend John Poundstone of Restoration Church offered a prayer asking for the blessing of the new fire engine and the protection of the firefighters who will use it, and Father Joseph Infante of St. Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church blessed the truck with holy water.

“I never had the honor of knowing Jayme, but I know many people whose lives she inspired,” Poundstone said.

Following the ceremony, 16 members of King’s family, representing her uniform number as a softball player at the University of Nevada, released balloons.

The district purchased the fire engine for $285,000, with most of the funds coming from the efforts of staff and volunteer firefighters who respond to wildfires outside the district.

Huntley said the new engine will be put into service as soon as all of the state registration and licensing requirements have been completed.