Sherborn Firefighter Retires After Nearly 50 Years Of Service To Town

“Most people are counting down the days until retirement. With Butch I don’t think it matters,” Sherborn Fire Chief Josh Buckler said Thursday night.

Lieutenant Charles A. Dowse III of the Sherborn Fire Department, who goes by Butch, retired Thursday night at a ceremony held in his honor at the station.

Dowse was an active member of the department for nearly 50 years as a firefighter and an emergency medical technician.

He was one of the original members of the Sherborn Rescue Squad established in 1973.

“It’s become second nature. I’m the last charter member of the rescue squad and I’m still active. All the others have retired or left,” Butch said.

“I started when I was this high,” he said lowering his hand to the ground. “And I’ve been going since.”

Dowse said that his years of dedication stem from his yearning to want to help others.

“It’s helping people. That’s what a lot of your [volunteer fire] people are like. They want to help people and give back to the community. It’s second nature for me, I’ve been doing it all my life.”

Butch said that even though he is retiring as an appointed officer at the department that he's not going away and that he can still contribute in a number of ways.

State Rep. David Linsky was on hand at the party to talk about Butch and to honor him with a certificate thanking him for his years of service from the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

“Charles has been obviously a wonderful volunteer and in a lot of different capacities for the town of Sherborn and Sherborn is a town that has to run on volunteers and I know that he’s contributed in hundreds and hundreds of ways in addition to being on the fire department for years and years and years,” Linsky said.

“The Dowse’s are Sherborn. I was fortunate enough to grow up in Natick and there were Dowse’s driving school buses when I was in high school,” said Linsky.

“Every agency needs institutional memory,” he said. “Institutional memory is not something that can be easily replaced.”

Butch was appointed to Lieutenant in 1979 and held that title until his retirement. He was also one of Sherborn’s first emergency medical technicians and maintained his certification for 35 years.

“The best we could do was we assumed at least a minimum of 47 years in service to the town of Sherborn. That put him back to 18-years-old. Butch will tell you that he was responding to fires prior to that so it’s 47-plus years and that level of dedication is awfully difficult to find in this day and age,” said Buckler.

Buckler thanked him for his years of service on behalf of the department and presented him with a plaque.