DERUYTER: Candidate a caring neighbor

Bill Deruyter is my neighbor. He is a highly qualified candidate for the Sub District 3 Fire Commissioner for the Northern Lakes Fire Protection District. But more than that, he is a man with integrity, ingrained with service. His life reflects this.

When I moved here in 2013, a friend invited me to pick plums in Rathdrum. I jumped on the opportunity and left a chicken boiling on my stove. When I came home three hours later, my neighbor Bill was at my house with all the doors and windows open and fans in every room. Two houses away, he heard my smoke alarm through an open window, checked it out and took action! He saved our 120-year-old, newly remodeled, and historical home as the first Strahorn family farmhouse. I felt so grateful to this man who cared enough to check it out. Multiple times, Bill has also saved my chickens from raccoons, being in tune to activity in the neighborhood.

I volunteered to participate in a role-play for gun control within the schools. Bill was helping run a very efficient, organized and necessary run-through of what to do in such an emergency. I was impressed!

I know how busy Bill is. He is training, volunteering, at board meetings, developing programs for firefighters, teaching at NIC, and serving in all kinds of programs.

Bill will make our lives better if he is elected. I can trust that Bill will do what is important for the people, forests, neighborhoods, education, and community because he is proactive, cares and is aware. He saved my property 12 years ago. He cares.

JULIENNE DANCE

Hayden