BY BRITTNEE NAVE

STAR Correspondent

Benny Lyons has been serving Carter County for many years as both the director of solid waste and as a volunteer firefighter.

Lyons has been the director of solid waste for about 11 years and has been a firefighter for 25 years.

His job with the county came after he was previously the building inspector and was offered a job after the former director for the landfill retired. He has worked there ever since and is passionate about his work.

“This is my livelihood,” Lyons said. “This is what takes care of my family. Not only that, but I’m a lifelong resident of the county.”

His work with volunteer firefighting began a bit earlier. Lyons recalled the 1982 fire of his home when he was a child as to what made him want to become a firefighter.

Juggling the two careers, the two have intertwined over time, ranging from safety procedures Lyons uses in both, to working a fire at the recycling center last August.

According to Lyons, the day this fire took place was a hard one, as he not only worked as a firefighter on the scene, but also worked as the director of the facility.

“It was a very bad day,” he said. “I had put a lot of work into that garage up there, and to see that we lost everything bothered me bad.”

In mid December, Lyons secured the location for the new recycling center, which he says is a blessing as it has more room for expansion and is also more secure. The facility, which is set to open Feb. 3, will not be open to the public like the previous one was, however. Instead, it will be a processing center only, and there will be drop-off sites throughout the city for people to turn in their recyclables for the center’s trucks to pick up and take there. One of the reasons for this is due to safety concerns with machinery.

“People will still be able to go everywhere they used to go, they just can’t go inside,” he said.

While working at the landfill during the day, he often brings his work home to get things done, such as budgets, and also carries a pager on him for when he is needed at the scene of a fire.

“It’s been three in the morning and it has gone off, and I go fight it,” he said.

While he does fearlessly face fires and help recuse people in accidents, Lyons says he is more cautious now than he was in the past due to his children.

The work Lyons has done at both the landfill and as a firefighter have not gone unnoticed. In December he was recognized by WJHL as “Hero of the Week.” Additionally, he is well known and respected in the community.

“Most material things can be replaced,” he said. “Your personal self, you can’t.”