LFCN History

Humble Beginnings of a Great Dream

Fire Chief Emeritus Michael Louis Kuk, PhD.

It was a chance opportunity for me to at attend the Louisiana State Fire Marshal/LSU Fire and Emergency Training Institute’s hosting of the Federation of Fire Chaplain’s Fundamentals Course in Baton Rouge in February 2010. I had returned to my professional fire service roots at Fort Polk in 2004, so this was the right place and the right time for certification in the Fire Service Chaplaincy.

I had been wanting to become truly certified as a chaplain before I retired. I had been serving as a chaplain since the 1980’s with only a small tidbit of knowledge and training, gathered from the limited Faith based sources that I encountered, as I moved with my position within the Federal Fire Service. I was the founder and chairman of the Federal Firefighters Memorial Committee since the early 1990’s, running the annual service at the combined IAFC/DoD conferences, and always wanted to become allied with the Federation. Thus, my moment was forthcoming.

I was determined to attend this session as the Founder of the Federation of Fire Chaplains, the Reverend Ed Stauffer, was going to be the lead instructor. Definitely a wonderful event was going to unfold.

Little did I know beforehand, that I would meet and become a lifelong friend and trusted colleague of the Reverend Jim Burns, PhD, and from that time forward, the humble beginnings of the Louisiana Fire Chaplain Network would have a spark lit.

During our lunch break on the first day, I was able to share the meal with Chaplains Stauffer and Burns, and thus, the foundation of the LFCN was laid. Brother Jim was literally “on fire” for the two of us to get together the following week. I explained my intense work week at Fort Polk, and said that why don’t we make my office at the Fort the base of future meetings, as it would be easy for our inaugural board members to drive and meet in convenience. Plus the fact that my office was large, out of the mainstream interruptions of busy traffic and activities, and it had an eight member conference table inside.

Brother Jim was living in Colfax, Louisiana at that time, and it was a little over an hour’s drive to the Fort. I got clearance for him to enter at the gate, and then we rolled up our sleeves to make this happen. He was full of great ideas, and from that moment on, I knew that our dream of a state network and a base of chaplains would grow quickly from that point.

After that first meeting, Brother Jim poured his heart and soul into everything required to have not only just a chapter, but a working full-blown statewide organization. He never shut off his personal computer, as I was receiving almost daily emails, regarding his ideas to stand up the whole concept.

Brother Jim soon reached out to several ministers, who had public service connections, and invited them to the Fort for our next meeting. We had a total of seven chaplains to form our Board of Directors. This nucleus started to share ideas and undertake various assignments for operational success.

Brother Jim, took on a lion’s share of the load. He went on to be the Secretary/Treasurer, in addition to numerous other duties, as most of the board members were engrossed in their daily jobs. He also started a draft of guidelines and presented these writings to the many forthcoming board meetings that we held to get things up and running for the whole State.

The vast majority of our board meetings took place in my office at Fort Polk. I was fortunate to have unquestioned support from my military chain of command. There was never any question to hosting the team. On a number of occasions, I went ahead and prepared pasta meals and chili for the members to enjoy, and I believe that the food was not only a pleasant surprise of good nourishment, but increased our overall fellowship and work production results.

Things actually came together pretty quickly. Every founding member of the board contributed and carried out their assignments in a progressive manner, and had something to report on at our next meeting. What is notable here, is that everyone had something different to work on and accomplish. There was a lot of pride and self-satisfaction amongst the board in getting things worked on. When we got stumped, a phone call to Brother Jim got us moving again in the right direction.

Now for the BIG one… Brother Jim was in regular contact with our Founder, and the next thing that happened was that the New-Kids-on-the-Block (us), were asked to host the 2011 annual conference. Indeed a huge challenge for this young upstart organization. We were in awe, to say the least!

Brother Jim was going to serve as the conference manager and our workload just increased by the numbers! We all were somewhat delighted, despite the awestruck vision of what lay ahead.

I know that not only did Brother Jim not sleep much after we agreed to serving as the 2011 hosts, but he prayed that we were going to be a total success. In fact, when the beginnings of the conference workload took off, he ran like a track star every day, and for a few weeks after the conference ended to cool off.

The location was going to be at the landmark Hotel Bentley in downtown Alexandria, Louisiana. The nearby airport (AEX), on the west side of the city, was the former home of the U.S. Air Force’s England Air Force Base. It was modern and pristine in operations, having been smoothly converted to a civilian operation. Inbound and outbound flights were regular, and the Federation’s membership would have easy and comfortable access to all of the travel amenities.

Overall the conference was an outstanding success. Brother Jim knew of other Faith leaders who could contribute to helping us, and we were blessed from that aspect. No stone was left unturned in this quest to ensure the best of things would happen.

During the run of the conference, I was fortunate to perform all of the ceremonial music, and also support a very talented female Christian musician and songwriter (Lottie Collier) during her portion of the spouses’ program with my sound equipment. The lady artist and I have remained good friends and colleagues since the conference.

And a little later on, I was most fortunate to have her work with me and write a special song entitled “Nobody Burns in this Place” for the annual Louisiana Fallen Firefighter Memorial Service. The State’s ceremony is held at the State Fire Marshal’s Office in Baton Rouge, where one of the most beautiful and striking memorial sites exist in our nation.

In addition to being the master musician, I was also on the program as a speaker. I presented a history of vintage fire equipment, and how I incorporate the use and display of many items into present day ceremonies. I developed and wrote articles and procedures for the use of this vintage gear, which has evolved into firefighter ceremonies for visual enhancement.

Shortly after that time, and we all had some breathing space, Brother Jim and I discussed several

other workings for the Network. We started dividing up the state into regions, and appointing regional directors share the direct day-to-day workload. Brother Jim also started looking at his calendar for conducting future training classes to increase our chaplaincy throughout the state, as so many departments lacked spiritual and mental support. A tremendous shortage of Fire Chaplains existed everywhere. Many Louisiana firefighters were under the assumption that only big city department had chaplains. The LFCN was out to fix that shortage on their behalf!

The next several paragraphs are a recap of the hard work and struggles of the early days of the LFCN. You had to be there to fully understand the undertakings of standing everything up.

Rev. Burns was the Regions Master Chaplain (from 2008) for the FFC (over U.S., Canada, South America, Germany, Australia and Namibia in Africa), and had been working with the FFC Conference for several years. He was currently developing the Regional Guidelines and the Regions Operations Manual and was also working on a Host Training Conference to help those who wanted to host a conference could follow a three-year model to do a conference. So, Brother Jim had his hands full at the time.

Originally, the New York State Chaplains had volunteered to do the 2011 Conference (we normally had a three-year window to put together a conference), then just before the 2010 conference, Rev Stauffer got a call that New York could not do the 2011 conference, and he quickly called Brother Jim and requested that he put something together in a short time in Baton Rouge or New Orleans. Brother Jim said, “No” not in Baton Rouge or New Orleans, as he only had seven chaplains in the central Louisiana area that he knew of at the time, of which probably might be able to put this annual conference together in the Alexandria-Pineville area.

Rev. Stauffer then said, “do what you can, it is a lot of work and a short time to do, but I know you can make it happen.” Brother Jim then jokingly said, “I guess you believe in miracles, right?” He said, “If Jesus did it then, He can do it again.” Brother Jim then called his seven men together and the rest is history. At that time only two chaplains, the Rev. Lou Gordon (attendee of the 2010 Conference) and Brother Jim had ever been to an FFC conference.

Brothers Shane Anderson, Lou Gordon, Russell Aucoin, Darryl Johnson were new chaplains. Bob Braly had been a law-enforcement chaplain for several years and was fairly new to the Fire Chaplaincy. Chief Michael Kuk and Brother Jim were the old (1960’s) veterans in the fire service. One of the best things we had going for us is that we had inexperienced chaplains, and they followed the guidelines without any free-lancing along the way. A lot of work, with a short time to do it in and overall, a very successful conference unfolded.

Our Eternal Chief certainly created a miracle through us. The LFCN’s initial cadre’ of chaplains followed the IAP (Incident Action Plan) for the Host Conference Manual to a T. The IAP included the Site Facility service, The Tired Traveler’s Reception, the Conference and Training Schedules, The Church Services, The Opening Ceremony, The Memorial Service, The Hospitality Room and Silent Action, The Logistics service, service to and from the airport to transport guests, and then to further transport them to activities to and from the complex of such a conference.

Of course, the Command Center was where everyone kept in touch within and throughout the conference, easily located in the hotel’s lobby. Not only was the conference a success in the quality of training and fellowship, the FFC broke-even! This was the first time in several years and we even had a few dollars left to the good. It was to the credit to those men who worked hard, prayed hard, and gave of themselves that the 2011 Conference was such a success. The other comment – Susan Burns was the Chairperson for the Spouse program and Lottie Collier (the musician and singer) added so much to the program. Susan and Lottie became real sisters through that process. (Lottie should be made an “Honorary Member of the Louisiana Fire Chaplain Network” at some time.) Brother Jim said, “Without question, Chief Michael Kuk has to be given credit for putting together the classes for the Chaplain Corps at Fort Polk, and the sustained and valuable work towards the Memorial Service, and for the tremendous professional and personal assistance in getting the LFCN off the ground.”

It was around this undertaking that I advised Brother Jim to take the title “Command Chaplain”. Not only was it well deserved, but he was constantly steering the ship, and without question, this title was duly ascribed to his office. It was a good addition to have to his office, as it cemented the position for the future of the LFCN.

Time moves on and it passes all of us quickly in years, not just days and months. Unfortunately, health issues arise, and many of us will be affected by wellness challenges as we age. A series of afflictions caught up to Brother Jim, and he fought every waking minute through this ordeal, and it was unfortunately repeating at times for him. He never gave up, and he kept his Faith!

Brother Jim contracted West Nile Virus in 2018, and that put him on his back for several months.

He started looking seriously for a successor, since the physician team that treated him at the Contagious Disease Control Center in Shreveport told him that he could have a residual effect from the disease for the rest of his life. The afflictions would probably come and go with balance problems, plus causing the brain to freeze from time to time, and a lot of other undetermined conditions. Thus, because of the prolonged swelling of the brain at the outset of the disease, Brother Jim was totally incapacitated for several weeks. He had to learn to walk again, and most of the normal things that he had performed all of his life, had to be re-learned one more time at age 78.

Brother Jim reached out to me and asked if I could step up to the Command position, as he wished to retire because of his ongoing health issues. As his loyal Adjutant, I said that I was honored, but my Vietnam War injuries were starting to haunt me around the same timeframe. I knew that I would work hard to do a good job for the LFCN, but I felt that with the rapid pace of my health slowing me down, and despite the excellent care of the Veterans Affairs medical staff, that I could not accept such a position of responsibility.

After several discussions about searching for his successor, we realized by past interactions and many strong elements of dedicated service, that we knew we had a solid member in the ranks of the Shreveport Fire Department, who would be our ideal candidate. This individual was already serving not only his department, but was highly active in his local church ministry, and well liked. Brother Jim and I knew that we had the ideal future leader.

Thus, SFD Chaplain Michael Perser was offered the position on July 17th, 2019, he accepted, and the rest is history. Command Chaplain Perser is steadfastly providing our daily guidance and Chaplaincy work for the 21st Century. We are blessed that the future of the LFCN is moving forward!