Serving others comes naturally
By Michael Johnson, Editor
When Bryan Grondahl went to the Riverdale city council meeting to resign from the fire chief position after 31 years on the job, it wasn’t exactly received well. The council wasn’t ready for the veteran to leave. But at 71 years old he’s ready to hand in his helmet. There likely isn’t a small town in America that has too many people helping the local volunteer fire department or the ambulance. But if they all had someone like Grondahl on board at least they would have a solid foundation to keep the service going. Grondahl has been fire chief of the City of Riverdale Fire Department for longer than Riverdale has been a municipality. He has a retirement party at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, which celebrates his 31 years of dedicated service to the area. Since Grondahl graduated from high school he has spent his days serving and protecting the lives of many. He started out in the Navy as a Seabee completing civil action projects as needed. Upon returning from the Navy, Grondahl took a job at a local Great Plains lumberyard in Minot. It was there that he came into acquaintance with Lloyd Goldade. Goldade was a persistent man who worked on Grondahl to get him to sign up to be a volunteer for the Minot fire department. After some time he cracked and headed down to the station to sign up. That was in 1964.
