Indiana\u2019s first female firefighter retired on Tuesday with a crowd of friends and coworkers surrounding her as she gave her final speech.<\/p>\n
Diana Hardy left behind 36 years of firefighting \u2013 32 of them with Purdue \u2013 on Tuesday afternoon.\u00a0 Hardy paved the way for women in a traditionally male-dominated profession as the first female firefighter in Indiana.\u00a0 Her retirement also marks the loss of Purdue Fire Department\u2019s longest-serving member.<\/p>\n
In honor of Hardy\u2019s service, Sen. Ron Alting and Rep. Sheila Klinker presented her with Indiana\u2019s Sagamore of the Wabash award.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the highest honor we can get in the State of Indiana,\u201d Alting said during the presentation.\u00a0 \u201cPeople like Neil Armstrong, a Boilermaker, was presented this award.\u00a0 Being a Boilermaker myself, (Hardy is) representing our great University and more importantly, this is history today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Accolades aside, Hardy said her biggest reward isn\u2019t the praise or recognition itself, but the example she is leaving behind for girls and other women.\u00a0 The Logansport, Ind. Native will be donating her uniform to Purdue Libraries to be put on display with items from other influential women, including pilot Amelia Earhart.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a women\u2019s history project.\u00a0 They\u2019ve wanted to do that for a while now, but I\u2019ve kind of held them off for a little bit because I felt like it was something I wanted to do after retirement,\u201d Hardy said.\u00a0 \u201cI really wanted to wait until all was said and done, and then kind of share the whole experience.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty cool to know that I\u2019m going to be in a display and somewhere, sometime, some little girl is going to see that and it may change her life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hardy described her retirement as bittersweet; she said the department\u2019s camaraderie, football and basketball games and tours with local children are what she will miss the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a career that you really have to be devoted to because it\u2019s a lifetime career.\u00a0 You\u2019re always a firefighter,\u201d Hardy said.\u00a0 \u201cI feel like I\u2019m not really leaving the department, I\u2019m just taking the uniform off.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Indiana\u2019s first female firefighter retired on Tuesday with a crowd of friends and coworkers surrounding her as she gave her final speech. Diana Hardy left behind 36 years of firefighting \u2013 32 of them with Purdue \u2013 on Tuesday afternoon.\u00a0 Hardy paved the way for women in a traditionally male-dominated profession as the first female […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[13,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-spec"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pT6ms-Uy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3507,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3506\/revisions\/3507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.purdue.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}