50-Year Career To End

The Orland (N. Calif.) city council has approved a plan to move dispatching for the town’s volunteer fire department to the city of Corning, ending an amazing 50-year career of Frances Pratt McCollum, who handled dispatching for the town since she was a high school student in the 1950s. McCollum recently turned ill, and the there has been some political talk of consolidating all dispatching through Tehema County, which is largely rural. The problem in centralizing dispatch operations is money, officials said, either for equipment or personnel.