Jamie Byrd is living the dream that she shared with her late husband Michael before she lost him to cancer last summer. Jamie is now not only officially a full-time firefighter with the Vidalia Fire Department, she is making history as the first woman to be in that position.

“It all started when a friend of Mike’s asked him to join the county department,” she said. “He went to a couple of meetings and would come home and say, ‘You might as well join, too; you know you want to.’ So, I did. I started as a support firefighter and moved up.”

Jamie said fighting fires alongside her husband was very special, noting, “A lot of times when you work you don’t get to spend enough time with your spouse. But this gave us more time together because basically where you saw one of us, you saw the other.”

She said she was nervous about applying for a job as a full-time firefighter even though she had the certification to do so “I thought: What’s the worst they can do, tell me ‘No?’ But they didn’t so here I am!”

As a full-time firefighter with the Vidalia, she will be treated with the same expectations as her fellow male firefighters, but it’s a challenge she can most assuredly meet.

Chief Brian Sikes says he’s proud to have Jamie join the close-knit fire department. “We are excited to have her. We’re excited for the department and the community, and we’re excited that she can be an example to little girls and to show them that they can do and be ANYTHING they want. When we were hiring, we wanted someone with the ambition and the heart and Jamie, just like her husband, has that drive.”

Jamie said she knows her husband, Big Mike as he was fondly called by many, would approve of her new job, and when things get tough, she said, “He’s that voice in my head. He’s the one telling me, ‘You’ve got this! You can do this!’ And he’d be right; I CAN do this!”