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Where There's SmokeA Baylor grad who's fulfilling a lifelong dream
By Judy Prather
NAME: Kelly Kovar '99
 WHEN I GROW UP: Like many kids, Kovar wanted to be a firefighter and even has the picture to prove it—showing
him at the age of eight in a Dallas Fire Department T-shirt. His dad
was later a captain for the volunteer department where they lived, and
that fanned the flame even more. What makes Kovar different is that he
stuck with the dream. It took a while to get there, including a
temporary stint as a science teacher, but since 2004 he has been a
firefighter-paramedic with Dallas Fire-Rescue. "My lifelong dream was
to be what I'm doing now," says Kovar, who is pictured at the scene of
a fire. Even as he followed a cousin to Baylor, majoring in sociology,
he kept the spark alive.
ALL WORK: Kovar's schedule is
twenty-four hours on and forty-eight off, and during the off time he's
a house-husband with two children: a nine-year-old son and a
two-year-old daughter. (His wife, Lauren, works in an operating room.)
On duty, his shifts goes from 7 a.m. one day to 7 a.m. the next,
alternating between firefighter and paramedic duties. When he arrives
at the firehouse, he checks his equipment, eats breakfast, watches TV,
maybe even takes a nap. "It's pretty much like being at home, except
there's a bunch of guys around," says Kovar, who, at thirty-three, is
the youngest firefighter in his station. "But when it's time to work,
it's time to work. When you get a run, you get in and go; you take care
of business—transporting a person to the hospital or putting the fire
out. That's pretty much it."
RING OF FIRE: But some days
are not so routine. In 2005, the "run" was to the Biblical Arts Center
in Dallas. While the building and many of its contents were lost, more
than a hundred firefighters, working in shifts, were able to save some
of the priceless artwork. Kovar says, "I remember how dang hot it was
that day—about 103 degrees—and how big that fire was."
SAVING THE DAY: Sometimes
there's more on the line than art. One day last April, the call was
from frantic parents who had just discovered their fourteen-year-old
son, who has special needs, lifeless in their backyard pool. Kovar and
his partner administered CPR and loaded the child in the ambulance.
During the ride, his partner felt a light pulse, and when the family
arrived at the hospital soon after, they found the boy alive. After
several days in intensive care, he went home. That particular call got
a lot of attention, including stories on local TV and on CNN. "In a big
city, you hear about the bad things," Kovar says. "It's good to get the
fire department and city out there in a good way. This is what we
really do, taking care of things and making a difference in people's
lives."
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