Atlantic Fire Chief Mark McNees, Wednesday, said the Atlantic Fire Department held its recognition banquet earlier this year, but the announcement of the 2017 Firefighter of the Year award was delayed, due to the absence of the recipient Mitch Peerbolte, who works at Peerbolte Chiropractic. McNees said it took longer than normal for the presentation, as Peerbolte left for an extended basic training with the Army National Guard just prior to the department banquet.

(Left) Mitch Peerbolte, 2017 Atlantic Firefighter of the year, and Atlantic Fire Chief Mark McNees.

Peerbolte was surprised with the presentation of the award at the department’s recent monthly meeting. According to McNees, “We waited quite awhile for the presentation and it was difficult to keep it a secret, but Mitch was definitely surprised when he was presented the award at our meeting. Mitch has been a very active firefighter since he joined and has a tremendous record of response and training hours, he has definitely earned the honor.”

Other’s recognized were Pete Smith as the Rookie of the Year, and Dustin McLaren as the Officer of the Year.