A longtime Grenada firefighter will be laid to rest today after serving more than two decades as an area first responder.
Deputy Chief Ricky Mitchell, a 22-year veteran with the Grenada Fire Department, died last Wednesday at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Oxford following complications from COVID-19. He was 62.
Last Thursday at GFD Station 1, Chief Ronnie Willis said the mood was somber.
“It’s sad around here,” he said. “Ricky was one of us — a firefighter; he was a family member.”
Willis recently promoted Mitchell to deputy chief after the veteran fireman had spent years as a captain with the department.
“He had his own mindset and that’s what made Ricky — Ricky,” Willis said. “He had a lot of jokes and pranks, but he was a good firefighter.”
Mitchell’s funeral will be held at noon at Emmanuel Baptist Church with full firefighter honors scheduled to take place. Following the funeral, burial will be in Smith Cemetery in Tallahatchie County.
A glimpse of Mitchell’s hero’s send off took place last Wednesday following his passing. Firefighters with the Grenada Fire Department and the Gore Springs Volunteer Fire Department, officers with the Grenada Police Department and deputies with the Grenada County Sheriff’s Office escorted the McKibben and Guinn Funeral Home hearse transporting Mitchell’s body to the funeral home in a long processional through the town. More than a dozen emergency vehicles passed through busy intersections at South Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard, Fairfield Avenue, Highway 8, Monroe Street and Jones Road to the funeral home where family, colleagues and friends gathered for about an hour, still reeling from the news.
