Lee County public safety personnel recognized

LEESBURG — In a recent work session at which the county’s Public Safety Department was a major focus, the Lee County Commission took time to recognize three of the county’s top public safety personnel who had received awards from new interim Public Safety Director Wesley Wells.

Since accepting his new role, Wells has worked to make sure firefighters and paramedics who have distinguish themselves are recognized.

“We have a lot of outstanding employees in Public Safety, and I want to share with you the high level of service (they) are demonstrating,” Wells said. “We have many high performing employees.”

Wells explained that the county’s paramedics, firefighters and county department heads were asked recently to nominate and then vote for those employees that go above the call of duty and serve as an example of service throughout the community.

“We have several high-performing employees in Public Safety, and not just those that were nominated,” said Wells. “But the ones that received the most votes and the most attention, we felt like they deserved an award that speaks to their performance. We want them to have something to put on display in their homes that they can look at and realize that their performance is recognized.”

Wells presented the Lee County Paramedic of the Year award to Pete Radano, a supervisor with Lee County EMS, who Wells said deserved “a trophy he can display forever” honoring his “hard work and dedication.”

Lee County Firefighter of the Year honors went to Billy Davis, who Wells said is “recognized for his outstanding performance and always being able to teach and assist everyone else.”

Those awards were followed by a special, third award that Wells presented to Kyle Lentz, who spearheads fire safety training throughout the community.

“The next individual that we want to recognize has dedicated his life, and it’s a passion of his to serve the community, to preventative measures,” Wells said. “He not only spends a lot of his personal time, off duty, dedicating himself to this cause, he puts in all sorts of extra work. He schedules (the training sessions) and develops these programs on his own, with very little assistance.

“We want to, in any way that we can, support him, and we’d like to recognize Kyle for his dedication and commitment to public safety community education.”

Following presentation of the awards, commissioners offered their gratitude.

“On behalf of the Board of Commissioners, we’d just like to say thank you for the outstanding jobs that you do,” said Commissioner Dennis Roland. “We thank you, too, Mr. Wells for recognizing all these people.”