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The Morning Brew with Chris Bennett
Ever wonder what really goes on at a small-town morning radio show?
The Morning Brew with Chris Bennett and Best Friends is your daily dose of real callers, big laughs, and unforgettable characters straight from QCountry 925 in Show Low, Arizona.
The Morning Brew with Chris Bennett
From Tragedy to Action: How We Can Support Timber Mesa Families
Hearts are heavy across the White Mountain community as we gather to honor two brave souls who made the ultimate sacrifice. Brenna Kulikowski, 31, and Damon Thompson, 21, both Timber Mesa firefighters, lost their lives in the line of duty, leaving behind grieving families, colleagues, and a community in shock.
The Morning Brew welcomed representatives from the White Mountain Firefighters Association and the Professional Firefighters of Arizona to discuss these remarkable individuals and the community response to this tragedy. Brenna, affectionately known as the "bohemian gangster," was recently married with a 10-year-old daughter. Damon, just 15 days from completing his probationary period, was described as a shining light and go-getter always eager to learn more about firefighting. Their loss has created an immense void, but their legacy of service and sacrifice will never be forgotten.
The firefighting community has mobilized incredible support through the Arizona Firefighter Foundation (azff.org), ensuring 100% of donations directly benefit the families and cover funeral expenses. This Friday presents multiple opportunities to contribute, with fundraising events at The House restaurant (5-9pm) and One Eye Jacks (9pm-2am) featuring silent auctions, bagpipe performances, and even unique auction opportunities like dinners with on-duty crews. Funeral services will be held at Show Low High School – Friday for Brenna and Saturday for Damon – with processions beginning at 9:45am both days from Owens Mortuary.
Beyond financial assistance, peer support teams have been deployed to help firefighters process their grief while continuing to serve the community. As one firefighter poignantly stated, "When we say 'never forget,' those aren't just words for us – it's something that will live on forever." Stand with our firefighting family by donating, attending events, or simply lining the procession routes to honor these fallen heroes who gave everything to keep our community safe.
From the Horn Auto Center Studios Chris Bennett and the Morning Brew. Good morning, it's the Morning Brew with Chris. Who's this?
Speaker 2:Jan.
Speaker 1:Jan the Weatherman, aka Jan from Heber. It has been a while. It is always so good to hear from you, Jan. Give us a little update.
Speaker 2:Monday we had a lot of rain, Ooh, I mean all day off and on, started off with a storm that lasted over two hours, steady rain, no torrential downpours. But that's what we need is just a good, steady rain, so clean the ground, so yep we need more.
Speaker 1:Are we going to get any rain today? You think?
Speaker 2:uh, right now it's sunny and clear, but that can change pretty quickly up here yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Uh well, jan, it's good to hear from you. Is there a song you want to hear? And I was wondering if you could help me out today.
Speaker 2:Let's try.
Speaker 1:All rise. It is now time for. Am I the Jerk Court? We have a special guest judge this morning from Heber, arizona. It is Jan the Weatherman. Jan, I'll read the story and when we come back, we'll get your advice, uh, and your ruling on whether this person is a jerk. Are you ready? I'm ready, all right, here's the story.
Speaker 1:I'm 23, a dude, and my buddy's 24. Uh, he just moved into my apartment after he and his girlfriend who his girlfriend's, also a close friend broke up. Oh, so sad. The breakup was his fault. He cheated, though I don't know. I didn't know that until after he'd already moved in. Here's the twist as we've all hung out, I've started developing feelings for his ex. I never looked at her that way before, but it feels like the spark I've been missing since leaving my past relationship. Meanwhile, I've learned he's been talking behind my back and even admitted to texting one of my exes after we broke up. Honestly, if he weren't crashing at my place, I might have cut ties already. I know catching feelings for his ex sounds wrong, but he's treated me poorly and betrayed her too. Am I the jerk for even thinking about her, or is it fair game, since he's shown me so little respect. What's your advice to this guy?
Speaker 2:He's not a jerk. If he has feelings for her, go with it. I would suggest that his friend so-called friend gets booted out.
Speaker 1:All right. So just kick him to the curb and then is it okay for him to ask his friend's ex on a date, or is that off limits?
Speaker 2:Oh, no, no.
Speaker 1:Have you ever dated a friend's ex?
Speaker 2:No, I haven't.
Speaker 1:No, but isn't that kind of against the bro code?
Speaker 2:No, if he has feelings for her and she wants to go out with him, you know Okay.
Speaker 1:Do it, yeah, and it doesn't sound like his friend. Is that great of a friend anyway? So if you lose, him as a friend.
Speaker 2:No, thank you. That's why I say I'd put him on the curb.
Speaker 1:All right, jan's advice put your friend to the curb and let your friend's ex know how you feel and see if she feels the same way. Jan, always great talking to you, best friend. Hope you have a great day and we'll talk to you soon. All right, all right, love you, buddy. Bye, bye. We are back and I have four guests in studio joining us today. They are guests with the White Mountain Firefighters Association and the Professional Firefighters Association. Everyone, go ahead and introduce yourselves. Who do we have here? And go ahead and say who you're with.
Speaker 4:Keith Plimpton, president of the White Mountain Firefighter Association, Local 4217.
Speaker 5:Yeah, hi, good morning. I'm Dan Friberg. I'm the president of the Professional Firefighters of Arizona, louis Mirabelli, political affairs officer with the White Mountain Firefighters Association.
Speaker 6:Chris Burkhart, the community outreach director for White Mountain Firefighters Association and Local 4217.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, gentlemen, for being here today. What would you like the community to know most about the two firefighters that we're doing fundraising for and that we're honoring this week?
Speaker 3:Chris, you want to touch on that bud.
Speaker 6:So, as you guys are aware, we lost two firefighters, two brave individuals, last Sunday at the line of duty. Death Brenna Kowalkowski was 31 years old, recently got married. She does have a 10-year-old daughter and just a shining light for her crew and for our organization here at Timber Mesa. Also, the other person who died in the line of duty is 21-year-old Damon Thompson, just three weeks away, 15 days away from completing his probationary firefighter and again just a huge asset to our district, huge asset to our crews. I can honestly say that they'll never be forgotten. There's so many good memories that we've had of both, of those, of both Brenna and Damon. Both of them are hard chargers. Brenna has the nickname of the bohemian gangster and then Damon was just a shining light for the crew in the district, man, just always a go-getter, always looking to get things done, wanting to know more about the fire service, and um it's. It is a tragic, tragic loss, not only to our district, to our crews, but also to our community as well yeah, such a uh a sad tragedy.
Speaker 1:And and how has the department and the community been supporting each other since this tragedy?
Speaker 3:So Sunday night after hearing about this tragic loss, I made a few phone calls. One of the most impactful phone calls was to this guy right here to my right, dan Freiberg, the president of the PFFA. He, from that moment on so that was Sunday night night he's been here. He was down the valley so he came out. So since that time he's been here we've had, uh, tom caretto, he's also the vice president of the pffa. Um, steven gilman, the district vice president, he's been in contact with me. Um, even edward ed kelly, he's the president of the International Association, so International PFA White Mountain Firefighters. He assembled the peer support team and I'll let him touch on that really quick.
Speaker 1:For those of us unfamiliar, tell us what the PFFA does and what the White Mountain Firefighters Association does.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so from the PFFA, we represent 9,000 union firefighters in Arizona, so pretty, pretty broad swath of people, and our job as the PFFA is basically to to look out for our membership, and that means that's through legislation that's ensuring that our firefighters are taken care of when they get hurt or injured or killed, in this case, right. So a lot of the stuff we do, unfortunately, has come to fruition today. So a lot of the benefits that we've worked for through PSPRS, which is the Public Safety Retirement System, through Arizona and Work Comp, and even federally through benefits like the Public Safety Officers Benefit, that's the work of what we do. So we're just simply here to represent our members and, of course, the White Mountain Local 4217 does a lot of the work locally and then we support them as well.
Speaker 4:And I just wanted to touch on, if I could real quick, the PFFA owns a foundation. It's called the Arizona Firefighter Foundation and the website is azfforg. If you're looking to make a donation, if you're looking to help, uh, I'm, I'm the president of the PFFA, I'm the chairman of our foundation board. Um, I can tell you unequivocally that 100% of the money that is coming into the foundation from Sunday night and and continue on through the week after uh, the services. 100% of that is allocated to this event and that's whether or not you donated for this event or just for something separate. But it goes towards helping the families get lodging, towards catering for the services, towards funeral services, whatever the costs are. We're going to take the money that we're receiving in and 100% of it will be used for this event.
Speaker 1:If you would like to help donate, you could go to azfforg, but I understand Friday is going to be a busy day with some big fundraising events. Tell us what's going on and how we can help.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, first and foremost, if you can't make the events and Lewis is going to share more about the events but if you can't make it, azfforg, our foundation that we own, the PFFA owns it Assurance is that 100% of the money that comes in is going towards this event. That's lodging for families, that's helping with funeral costs, that's helping with all the other services and everything around the event, and then whatever's left after we've paid those bills, those are direct checks to the family.
Speaker 6:Direct to the family.
Speaker 4:Nothing coming off the top. No fees. We're eating. We're going to eat all of the extras.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 4:But in terms of, like, what's going to the families, only all of it. So, please, please, make a donation if you can't attend.
Speaker 1:Amazing and go ahead and tell us, lewis, about what events are going on Friday that we can support.
Speaker 5:Yes, ahead and tell us, lewis, about, uh what events are going on friday that we can support? Yes, so uh, in the afternoon, starting at 5 pm at the house restaurant in show though they're off hall uh, chris has uh allowed us to host our fundraising event there. From 5 pm to 9 pm we'll be uh accepting donations at the door. We'll have a booth set up, our uh pipes and drums, uh personnel will be out there playing the bagpipes. Those guys are amazing to see. They're definitely a tearjerker.
Speaker 5:We're going to be having a silent auction for around a golf and our guys will be accepting donations going through the night, accepting donations through the night fill the boot, fill in helmets, whatever we can get, and then a portion of the proceeds that night of sales will go directly to the foundation immediately following that. So that's going from five to nine at the house restaurant immediately following that. Ashley and her team over at one eye jacks have graciously invited us over there. So from 9pm till 2am will be at one eye jacks. Same thing donations at the door. We'll be doing having uh having guys go around helmets and boots accepting donations. A portion of that night's proceeds will also be going to the foundation and there.
Speaker 5:We'll be conducting two auctions. We're going to auction, uh, three separate dinners with on-duty crews, with the firefighters on duty Um, cause, we can definitely throw down in the kitchen and uh, and we're going to cook dinner and have people over to the firehouse. The other thing we're going to be doing is auctioning two of our firefighters for a paid date night, where we have two firefighters, brittany and Ryan, that are going to be auctioned off as a way to raise money for the families.
Speaker 4:Please be classy with Brittany and with Ryan. Be real creepy.
Speaker 5:Yeah with Ryan yeah definitely so with. Ryan, we can be creepy. Let her rip Ryan's very introverted.
Speaker 6:It's going to be a heck of a date, yeah.
Speaker 1:Some great fundraising opportunities to support our heroes. So make sure you make it out this Friday Going to be at the house from 5 to 9. Yes, sir, and then after that, festivities Right to.
Speaker 5:One Eye Jacks. Yeah, we're not again. We're being very clear. We're not throwing a party here. It's definitely a somber event, but we're trying to use this opportunity to raise funds for the family. Yep, as firefighters, we're going to do whatever we can to take care of our families.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so go ahead and get down to the events, make your donations, and if you're not able to come to the events live, you can still donate by going to azfforg. That's right. Heck, yeah, we are back with Dan, with our professional firefighters of Arizona. Also, we have our White Mountain Firefighters Association, local 4217, joining us. We talked about the fundraising events that we have going on to raise money for our fallen firefighters. What other services are you guys offering as far as peer support to people that?
Speaker 4:have been affected. Yeah, so we have peer support teams, effectively, and that's run by the International Association of Firefighters, which is sort of our parent organization. They represent 350,000 members across the United States and Canada. So our union is very specifically targeted to take care of our own. We do a lot more than just work for improved wages, benefits and working conditions. We also provide a lot of services.
Speaker 4:So we know, having been through this before with Granite Mountain 19 and countless other occasions where we've lost people, that the loss is impactful and it's heavy and the families are affected by it and the members are affected by it. But Saturday is going to be some sort of closure, for lack of a better word. Right, we'll have the events, the services. However, the men and women that serve this community SHOLO and you know, with Timber Mesa and Pinetop and all the surrounding areas, they're going to go back to work on Sunday morning and they're going to be responding to 911 calls and they've just lost dear friends.
Speaker 4:And our peer support teams through the International Association of Firefighters are already on the ground Carrie Romella, who leads it through Public Safety Crisis Solutions, and her team. They're meeting with crews right now. They're going to have ongoing support. They're always a phone call away because these members are going to this, is going to stay with with them, us, us, forever. I've I've lost friends in this, in this job, and I think about them all the time and and when we say never forget we, we, those aren't just words, for us, it's, it's, it's something that will live on forever.
Speaker 1:And the uh, the funeral ceremonies are this Friday and Saturday and when we come back, we're going to talk about where we can line the streets and show our support for these heroes this Friday and7. I'm talking to Chris right now. Chris, tell us about the. We have the funeral services happening Friday and Saturday for our firefighters. Tell us where can people line the streets for the procession and pay tribute to these heroes?
Speaker 6:That's correct, chris. Thank you for having us. As you know, friday and Saturday are the Friday, I believe, is Brenna's services. Saturday is Damon's services. Both services will be starting around 1030 at Shill High School. The procession will be leaving Oman's mortuary at about 945. They're going to be coming out onto the deuce at clubs, making a left onto the deuce, going down to Clark 260, making a right right, going down to old linden and then taking old linden all the way into the high school. So, um again, that's both friday morning and saturday morning. So anywhere along the deuce, anywhere along um clark road, anywhere along old linden, if you guys can come out and support the families of, support the families that were fallen, and bring out your flags and just show the community support, support that we, we all, know and love.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Let's show our community support and remember all those great fundraising opportunities that are available. If you're not able to make it, you can donate directly to azfforg and a hundred percent of those donations go to our fallen firefighters.
Speaker 4:Goes to the event right. That's either lodging them, paying for costs and whatever is left over at the end that's for the families azfforg.
Speaker 1:Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today and again thank you to all our first responders and all our firefighters for everything you do, and our thoughts and prayers go out to you guys.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Thank you for for having us here and really thank you to the whole community who's come out and support. Thank you.
Speaker 6:Thank you.
