Life comes full circle for newly promoted Marysville Fire District Captain

A photo taken more than 33 years ago shows a Lakewood kindergartner dressed as a firefighter meeting Marysville Fire Deputy Chief Darryl Neuhoff while the fire crew was doing drills, which was common on the street where the boy lived.

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Some firefighters had come to his kindergarten class and gave every student a plastic fire hat. Jacob Kuehn, the young boy in the photo, who is now in his late 30s, would wear the hat with a red bathrobe, yellow sweat pants, and big black boots.

“I’d have everything all laid out right next to my bed, and I would practice rolling out of bed and taking off and riding my bike down the street making sounds of sirens, like most kids do when they’re playing make-believe,” Keuhn said.

On one of those days, Deputy Chief Neuhoff saw young Keuhn and put him up on the fire truck. Neuhoff had told the boy to turn in an application when he turned 18. In that moment, Keuhn says he “knew right then and there” that firefighting would be the career for him.

He kept that promise.

This week, Neuhoff had the pleasure of pinning a badge on newly promoted Marysville Fire District Captain Jacob Kuehn. He’s much taller now and, 33 years later, he has a new red hat.

33 years ago, a Lakewood kindergartner met local Fire Chief Darryl Neuhoff, who told him to turn in an application when he turned 18. Yesterday, Chief Neuhoff pinned a badge on that same boy, newly promoted MFD Captain Jacob Kuehn.#fullcircle #makeanimpact pic.twitter.com/s8uSrmMHS3

— Marysville Fire District (@Marysville_Fire) February 23, 2021

Kuehn says when he graduated high school, it was right after 9/11 and fire departments had so many applicants that it just wasn’t realistic to pursue firefighting. He went to nursing school, became an ER nurse, then started working part-time at Marysville Fire, before eventually being hired full time.

“[I] knew this was the place I wanted to get hired at,” Kuehn said. “Obviously because of my influence I had as a kid, I didn’t even apply anywhere else, I just applied here.”

Keuhn was hired in 2009 and told the deputy chief about their past connection. Keuhn’s mother thought she might have a photo of that day 33 years ago when Neuhoff lifted her son onto a fire truck, and she spent an entire afternoon searching for it.

“It literally was like the last box that she was going to open up, and got to the very bottom of it. And she was so glad that she found it because she was thinking it was just a memory in her memory bank there,” Keuhn said. “I was so thankful that she did because I wanted to highlight what Chief did for me and for my life.”

Neuhoff says the photo sparked his memory, perhaps in part due to Keuhn’s unique outfit.

“I couldn’t have remembered it until I saw the picture, and then I had some vague recollections of that event. There are a lot of kids that come by the stations or come out — I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one in a red bathrobe walking down the street before,” Neuhoff laughed. “So that might have been what triggered the memories.”

“The fact that I had someone that I impacted at such a young age, that not only followed in those same footsteps, decided that’s what I want to be, ended up in the same fire department that I worked at. I mean, that is not something that I hear about,” Neuhoff said.

KIRO Radio’s Diane Duthweiler contributed to this report.