SANFORD - The Firefighter Academy of Central Carolina Community College graduated 18 cadets during an Aug. 15 ceremony at the Dennis A. Wicker Civic Center.

Over a seven-month period, the graduates completed 833 hours of rigorous and intensive fire fighting, safety and survival, physical agility, and emergency medical technician training at the college's Emergency Services Training Center, in Sanford. Training was under the direction of Capt. Wilbert "Tramp" Dunn, CCCC Firefighter Academy coordinator and Capt. Joey Shue, CCCC Fire/Rescue coordinator.

The cadets earned certifications in Firefighter I & II, HAZMAT Level One Responder, Technical Rescuer General, and Technical Rescue VMR. They are eligible to take the state EMT Basic certification exam.

"The ESTC has a high success rate of those graduating becoming paid firefighters or EMS providers," said Dwight Dixon, director of the Emergency Services Training Center. "Many of those go on to serve in our local communities. We are grateful to the local departments for their support with the academies."

Those graduating and their sponsoring agencies were: Stacey Zoruba, Roman Prince, and Brian Elliott, Carolina Trace Fire Department; Courtney Walker, Benhaven Emergency Services; Jacob Cox, Lemon Springs Fire Department; Jeremy Dollar, Tramway Fire Department; Christopher Way and Jacob Jones, Deep River Fire Department; Martin Gunter and Ryan Stack, Northview Fire Department; Katie Bond, Spout Springs Emergency Services; Christopher Binkley and Ethan Tart, Lemon Springs Fire Department; Arnold A. Muleshe, Stephen Young, and Aaron Lympany, Apex Fire Department; Scott Bedoe, Moncure Fire Department; and Brandon Mills, Northwest Pocket Fire Department.

Aaron Lympany was class valedictorian and received the Leadership Award; Brian Elliott received the Most Improved Award. Chief John McGrath, of the Raleigh Fire Department, was the keynote speaker for the graduation.

Central Carolina Community College's Firefighter Academy is held at the college's Emergency Services Training Center, in Sanford. The college began offering firefighter training classes in 1964. In 2001, the Emergency Services Training Center was established at the former Sanford/Lee County Airport site in Sanford, providing greatly expanded facilities for training.

Since then, a new classroom building, Class-A burn building, 40-foot rescue training tower and other facilities have been added on the 116-acre site. The Firefighter Academy opened in January 2010. The ESTC is part of the college's Economic and Community Development Division.

For information about the fire academy go to https://www.cccc.edu/estc/ and click on "Fire and Rescue Training" or contact Joey Shue, CCCC Fire and Rescue coordinator, at (919) 777-7778 or jshue@cccc.edu. The ESTC is a department of the college's Division of Economic and Community Development.