Vernon “Bernie” McGaha was on his way to get dinner at the Willard in Franklin with a friend and his wife when his friend’s phone rang.
Deb Noe had called Cordry-Sweetwater volunteer firefighter Dion Walter to tell him that the lights had gone out at the Cordry-Sweetwater Lot Owners Association Clubhouse while a group was trying to have a meeting.
“Dion says, ‘Well, I got Bernie with me. We’ll stop by real quick,’” McGaha said.
“I know every square inch of that clubhouse by heart,” McGaha added.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]He made a left to go toward the electric panel when all of a sudden, one of his sisters appeared in front of him.
All the lights went on and everyone in the room yelled “Surprise!” while McGaha’s mouth fell to the floor.
“I was floored. I was absolutely floored,” he said.
Conservancy District Manager Stacy Wethington and others worked to put this retirement party together for McGaha. It was tough to keep a surprise, since McGaha knows everyone in the community.
And rightfully so. He’s been protecting it as either a firefighter, EMT or police officer for more than 30 years. On Nov. 23, he officially retired as the chief deputy at the Cordry-Sweetwater Conservancy District.
Nov. 23 was also his birthday. The day was bittersweet.
“I’ve been doing this for 37 years. It’s tough to stop,” McGaha said.
He was hired as a part-time deputy for the district in 1982, then promoted to a full-time lakes deputy in 1983.
The conservancy district hires and pays the deputies in the area, but they are deputized through the Brown County Sheriff’s Department. The sheriff’s department and the conservancy district’s board of directors work together to hire deputies. There are normally four full-time deputies in the lakes area, along with four part-timers and a reserve (volunteer) deputy.
Deputy Jimmy Green will take over as senior officer and a fourth deputy will be hired to fill in for McGaha.
If Cordry-Sweetwater ever incorporated as a town, it would be the largest town in Brown County. It has around 1,200 residents, but some of the homes serve as vacation homes with people not living there all year long.
The district has a public library, a real estate office, a volunteer fire department with ambulance service, and the deputies there are housed at the conservancy district’s office. There are also walking trails, a beach and two playgrounds at the two large lakes.
The district is about 25 minutes north of Nashville, where the sheriff’s department is based. That’s where lakes deputies’ backup would come from if they needed it, so having an experienced officer like McGaha running things up there has been a comfort to Sheriff Scott Southerland.
“Anything Cordry-Sweetwater fire or police related, he’s always the guy. You call Bernie,” Southerland said. “I don’t know if he has any hobbies other than policing or fire work in Sweetwater. He does it all.
“He’s just very solid. No matter what happens, you’re in good hands up there.”
Southerland’s first full-time job was working as a deputy in Cordry-Sweetwater with McGaha. Now, McGaha will volunteer as a reserve deputy under Southerland’s leadership.
During his retirement, McGaha plans to spend more time with his mother, Ruby, like taking her to Bible study on Tuesdays, and working on his home, plus doing some traveling with his wife.
‘Dedicated public servant’
McGaha and his wife, Gina, moved to Cordry-Sweetwater in 1984.
The couple had lived in Princes Lakes, where he volunteered as a reserve officer there — his first experience in law enforcement. He had worked in construction before that. He also worked with the ambulance service in Princes Lakes.
Volunteering as a reserve officer in Princes Lakes is how McGaha learned of a part-time deputy job opening in Cordry-Sweetwater.
He grew up on Nineveh Road just outside of the county line.
“I had friends here. I’ve been coming down here forever,” he said of the lakes.
Along with being the senior officer in Cordry-Sweetwater, McGaha serves as the assistant chief for the Cordry-Sweetwater Volunteer Fire Department. He’s been fighting fires for more than 40 years, having held the positions of lieutenant, captain, assistant chief and chief.
He first joined the Nineveh Township Volunteer Fire Department after moving to Princes Lakes as a newlywed. He and Gina have been married for 44 years.
He had been reluctant to take on leadership roles at the Cordry-Sweetwater fire department. But soon, that chief retired and moved to Franklin, putting the department in McGaha’s hands.
“I had enough to do police-wise, and that kept me busy. It’s kind of like adding that other burden onto me also,” he said.
“Once I got into it and I got everything stable, everything set where I could work all of it … I had a bunch of excellent people on the department and they all helped me along.”
He ended up staying on as chief for more than 20 years.
“If you’ve got good people, it makes it a whole lot easier,” he said.
“Then finally it came to a point it’s like, ‘You know, I need to have some “me” time.’”
When he stepped down as chief, McGaha was still working as a deputy and as vice chairman of the conservancy district’s board of directors. “And my wife is going to kill me,” he said with a laugh.
He plans to stay on with the fire department, but only as a firefighter and EMT. ”I’ll do all of the runs, the EMT stuff, but no extra responsibility,” he said.
“But you know what? They’ll ask me and I’ll do it,” he continued with another laugh.
Mike Leavitt is the current chief of the fire department. McGaha said it is a comfort leaving the department in his hands.
“He’s really done a good job with the department,” McGaha said.
“It was my baby. There’s just so many years I kept it together and kept things going.”
McGaha also has invaluable history of the area, like which homes may have more flammable items inside or have had renovations.
Leavitt describes McGaha as a “great, dedicated public servant.”
“He’s sacrificed a lot over the years, not going on vacations and missing family get-togethers, things like that, by either working as a deputy or because of the fire department,” he said.
“He spent his whole time dedicated to the public service side of things, and that’s been pretty tremendous.”
Service runs in the McGaha family.
McGaha’s two sons both served with the Cordry-Sweetwater Volunteer Fire Department. His oldest, Corey, is now chief training and safety officer for the White River Township Fire Department.
Gina works as a nurse in the emergency room at Johnson Memorial Hospital. She also plans to retire next fall. When Bernie is transporting a patient as an EMT, he often brings the patient straight to his wife for further treatment.
“This is what’s fun,” Bernie said as he leans forward with a smile on his face.
“If I’m an EMT that’s transporting them to the hospital, if I’m their caretaker, I’ll be back there and I’ll be telling them, ‘There’s a lady up there and her name is Gina. She is mean. You need to be mean back to her,’” he said with a chuckle.
‘They are my family’
Protecting your community is not always filled with light and laughter, though. It can also be heartbreaking.
“I’ve been here a lot of times when my best friends have died and I couldn’t do anything,” McGaha said about responding to medical emergencies.
“I’d be there and there was nothing we could do. The tragedy of the whole thing is I’m on duty working, so I’m always the first one there. … Those are the hard times.”
But McGaha has also been there when lives have been saved.
“You’re doing CPR, you get the defibrillator and they survive. Those are the times that are just out of this world,” he said.
Overall, the love of his community has kept him protecting and serving it for decades.
“I love these people up here. It’s almost like they are my family and you just want to take care of them,” he said.
Back in 2008, when a historic flood damaged the county, the Cordry-Sweetwater Volunteer Fire Department was the main headquarters for emergency response in that area. Around the time of the flood, a tornado also came down Beech Tree Road.
McGaha ran the emergency response team there. “It’s like every time EMA (county emergency management) would call to get in contact with us to find out what we needed and have us do something, I was already a step ahead and already had it done. … I called all of my off-duty guys in and we were going door to door, making sure everybody was OK,” he said.
McGaha and his wife plan to still live in the area after they both retire. This is their home.
Once, when he was out patrolling, he stopped to talk with a homeowner who was going on vacation. “He goes, ‘My trash guy comes day after tomorrow and we’re leaving today. I don’t want to leave my trash out because the critters will get into it. Do you mind to take my trash from the garage and put it out?’
“I put his trash out,” he said. “You just do things like that.”
He has missed some holidays at home because he wanted to give other deputies or firefighters a break. “If it was something I could handle, not a lot of time, then I would go ahead and do it so they could stay with their families,” he said.
“They work good for me, so I want them to be happy.”
The conservancy district office staff will miss McGaha, Wethington said.
“You can’t think of Cordry-Sweetwater Conservancy District and not think of Bernie McGaha,” she said.
“He will be missed by everyone. I will especially miss all of the knowledge he has of the area and I am thankful that he lives here in the district, so I can still see him around, but I will mostly miss just his presence. It will definitely not be the same without him here.”
The clubhouse was packed for his retirement party on Nov. 22, which Wethington said was a testament to the love the community has for Bernie too since no official invite was given out and it only spread by word of mouth.
“These women here are precious. They have been wonderful,” McGaha said about the conservancy district office staff.
“I told them I’m going to be up here in the mornings for coffee and donuts.
“Of course, now I get to bring them,” he added with another laugh.
