After nearly 10 years as Stoddard County Emergency Management Director and 33 years in education, Kent Polsgrove has decided to call it a career. Polsgrove spent 20 years at Dexter as assistant principal at the middle school and then assistant superintendent.
After his retirement in 2010 from the Dexter school system as assistant superintendent, he was approached by the county commission then made up of Greg Mathis, Carol Jarrell and Frank Sifford about taking the emergency management director position.
“The week after Labor Day 2010 is when I got a phone call from the commissioners asking if I would be interested in the job,” said Polsgrove. “To be honest with you, I had some reservations about it because it is a public safety job.”
“Commissioner (Greg) Mathis, whose dad lives next door to me, he said I am going over to Dad's, are you going to be at the house?” said Polsgrove. “He gave me three names to call and I knew one of them who was an educator, who is doing this down at Dunklin County, Chief (Al) Banken and the regional coordinator at the time Mark Winkler.”
Mathis asked Polsgrove to talk to the three individuals. Polsgrove said in his conversations with Mathis and Winkler, he was told of the paperwork, which Polsgrove said is harder to learn than the job.
Polsgrove said they felt his experience dealing with state agencies and his experience filling out grant requests would be beneficial.
Polsgrove said when he took the the job, the county officials were very supportive.
Polsgrove said he learned he could probably get himself where he could work the day-to-day work in public safety. He also stated when he got into the paperwork, he began to understand the concern the commission had about the paperwork.
Polsgrove thinking he would be retired at that point had planned a trip with his wife and youngest daughter. He recalled they had been planning the trip for about two years. The trip was to London to watch the 2012 Summer Olympics. Polsgrove said he told the commission he would be gone for about three weeks and he had been planning the trip for some time. If the trip would be an issue, he would pass on the job and let the commission seek someone else. The commission had no problem with the trip.
Polsgrove said it seemed like everytime he traveled bad weather would hit Stoddard County. Polsgrove recalled another trip he and his wife took to Italy. On the Polsgrove's first day in Italy, sure enough a major storm went through Stoddard County. Polsgrove said it got to the point that Jamie Holcomb at the Stoddard County Ambulance District told him jokingly she was putting extra crews on duty just in case when learning he would be traveling.
Polsgrove started in December 2010 and was met in January 2011 with a deluge of rain and flooding. Polsgrove said he was new to the job and didn't know what he was doing.
Polsgrove said the accomplishment he is most proud of is the setup of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at the ambulance district headquarters. Polsgrove said prior to the setup there was a place the county officials had to meet, but it did not have the resources available that were needed. Polsgrove said the EOC was established through money from the Stoddard County Commission and grants. Polsgove said the EOC was usable at the end of January 2011.
Looking back on his career, Polsgrove has been able to pick out the memorable as well as the most interesting incidents he has had to deal with.
The most memorable was a 1A and 1B, according to Polsgrove. The first, 1A, being the heavy rains in the area that began at the end of January 2011. Polsgrove said the rains continued until May, resulting flooding in the area. Polsgrove recalled roads being closed, Morehouse flooding and levies near Charleston being blown up to try to relieve the flooding.
“I had been on the job four months,” said Polsgrove. “I had no idea what the heck was going on. I was lost.”
He said other county officials assisted him as they had just been a couple of years removed from the ice storm.
“There are a lot of things you do in any disaster that lend themselves to the other disaster,” said Polsgrove. “Wellness checks, checking on the roads, just things you know generally happen during a weather event.”
Polsgrove said they did all of the work out of the new ambulance district building and received compliments by the state, region, Coast Guard and others. He said there were phone lines and internet lines to run laptops. Polsgrove said a lot of good press was received as a result of the new EOC. Polsgrove said during the 2011 floods, Stoddard County was in the top five counties in the state as far as amount of land underwater.
The second, 1B, being the pandemic.
Polsgrove said special software was purchased during the pandemic to allow for virtual meetings. Polsgrove stated that the commission requested the software when it became apparent meetings would not be able to be held in person.
Polsgrove said a secondary EOC is in the works. It was discovered during the pandemic that a second was needed to protect the health of personnel at the ambulance district. Should the health of the ambulance district personnel be compromised, there would be no medical personnel to assist the residents of the county. This made it necessary to limit access to the ambulance district. Polsgrove said a site is being looked at for the secondary EOC and an announcement could come in the near future regarding the secondary EOC.
The most interesting was the rescue of horses during the flooding of 2017. Polsgrove said he, Dr. Joe Baker, who was the state veterinarian at the time, and Andy Holden, chief deputy with the Stoddard County Sheriff's Department, went to view the flooding near the spillway of Lake Wappapello. Baker wanted to go to check on the well being of some horses in the area.
They found the horses on the property of an owner Polsgrove did not name. They found the horses could be in danger if the water continued to rise. Baker offered to move the horses for the owner.
Polsgrove said the owner informed them he would open the gate of the fencing that surrounded the area where the horses were housed and allow them to reach the safety of higher land. Two days later on his way to Sikeston for a meeting, Polsgrove received a phone call stating the owner did not open the gate. Polsgrove said a drone flyover was done but the trees were too thick to see anything.
Polsgrove spoke to a member of the Coast Guard at the meeting and asked if they could help rescue some horses. Polsgrove stated the Coast Guard representative upon hearing where the horses were, said they had a crew with a boat that was returning from Doniphan, which had flooded, and was nearing Fisk. Polsgrove asked that the crew stop at Dudley and he would have Baker meet them there.
Dave Cooper, Stoddard County Ambulance Manager, took an ambulance crew as well in case something went wrong.
The Coast Guard crew along with Baker were able to release the horses and get them to safety. Polsgrove said all of the horses were OK.
Polsgrove said he will now spend more time with his 93-year-old father, as well as take small trips. He said he has some family in Kentucky he would like to go see. He will also continue to enjoy watching his grandkids play different sports. He said he will play more golf and work on his photography hobby. He said he thought he would find a coffee shop to go to, so he could hear the stories but said that is on hold because of the pandemic.