At the Nevada County Library this morning, a retirement reception took place for Emmet Mayor Dale Booker who will be giving up his position as the county’s 911 Coordinator, which he has held for about 27 years.
Asked how his day was going, Booker said, “Wonderful. A couple months ago, I would have said, No, I'll never retire. But I love the fact that I don't have to get up and be somewhere at a certain time.”
During his time of service to the county, Booker said he was most proud of Nevada County’s 911 system. “I’m proud of our dispatch console. We've gotten one of the better ones in the whole state. I'm really proud of that. Our mapping software, I'm really proud of that. That really helps dispatchers dispatching someone out. But the whole thing, altogether—I attribute that to a lot of folks … and I’m very thankful and proud of them.”
Booker’s relationship with Emmet goes back 30 years. He started as a city marshal when he was 21 years old and then served as mayor for a period, then was defeated by former Mayor Nick Garland and then became mayor again after eight years.
“I figured I wouldn't ever go back, but I was talked into it and have been back ever since. It’s been a pleasure, too. We've accomplished a lot of things there,” Booker said. He pointed to the building of a public sewer system as one of those. He will continue to serve as mayor of Emmet.
Booker said he plans to still help current county office of emergency services director David Gummeson, who he will be handing the 911 Coordinator reins over to. Gummeson said of Booker, “We've worked together closely for the last several months, and it's gone really good. He's a wealth of knowledge. He really is. So I hope I can live up to his expectations.”
In attendance at Tuesday’s reception was Director of Arkansas’ Geographic Information Systems Office Shelby Johnson. He said, “We have really enjoyed a really good relationship with Nevada County, because Dale has attention to detail, and that's a really important part of this work. So when we received a file up from Nevada County, it required minimal processing and minimal work on our part to put it into the statewide database.”
County Judge Mike Otwell was one of the many attendees at the reception. Among the items served were homemade cinnamon rolls by Bailey Pennington, breakfast pizza, breakfast sandwiches, a yogurt and fruit parfait, muffins, donuts, mineral water and juice beverages. Gummeson said she helped make some of the items and others were acquired from a local store.
All photos by Samantha Gummeson.
