Lowellville administrator looks back at 41 years with village

By Sarah Lehr

slehr@vindy.com

LOWELLVILLE

When Bill Meehan, who soon will retire as village administrator, joined the Lowellville fire department in 1975, the firefighters would ride to blazes by clinging to the truck’s tail board.

“It was just like you see in the movies,” Meehan remembered.

Though Meehan acknowledged today’s method of having firefighters ride inside the truck is “a lot of safer,” he admits to taking a nostalgic look back at the excitement and freedom of those days.

Meehan, who began his service to the village as a volunteer firefighter, will retire July 31. His replacement, Richard Day, is training for the job.

Meehan became fire chief in 1980 and made the transition to part-time administrator, his current position, in 2007.

During his 41-year tenure, Meehan has served four mayors and says he’s seen vast improvements in safety technology. Before the village joined a 911 system, Meehan said local dispatchers would run the emergency lines from their homes.

“There would be a few ladies who would answer the phones, and they had a red emergency button at their houses,” Meehan recalled.

He graduated from Lowellville High School and attended Youngstown College before being drafted into the Army in 1965.

“Thankfully, they didn’t send us to Vietnam,” Meehan said. “We were in Germany.”

The Lowellville native is president of the St. Vincent DePaul Society and a member of the Lowellville Business Association.

Apart from his time with the military, Meehan has never lived outside Lowellville. He said there’s something special about the 1,000-person Mahoning Valley hamlet nestled between hills.

“Everybody knows everybody,” Meehan said. “It’s like one big family, I guess.”