Fall 2026 Winner of the Wounded First Responders Scholarship

Jonathan Nicholas Kimbro

The Fall 2026 Wounded First Responder Scholarship has been awarded to East Texas A&M University student Jonathan Kimbro. Jonathan spent 17 years as a firefighter before suffering severe burns in 2024. Read Jonathan’s essay to learn how this experience affected his life but inspired his current goals.

Read Their Essay Here:

On September 13, 2024, I stepped onto what looked like solid ground. I was investigating a possible illegal burn, a call I had answered many times in seventeen years of service. The ground gave way, and my boots filled with 800-degree embers and coals. In seconds I had partial and full thickness burns on both feet.

I was hired as a career firefighter in 2007 and rose to Deputy Chief of Prevention and Investigation. I did not expect my career to end because of someone else's shortcut. The burn was ruled accidental, but it was not random. It happened because someone ignored rules written to keep people safe.

At the Vanderbilt Burn Center I underwent multiple surgeries, skin grafts, and debridements. Nerve damage left me with neuropathy, and I will likely never return to full duty. Losing the career, I loved led to depression, anxiety, and possibly PTSD.

The heaviest cost fell on my family. My two boys were seven and five at the time. On our small farm they began feeding animals, tossing hay bales, mowing, and clearing ditches. My wife, who works third shift, learned to run the tractor and mend fences. Then she took over coaching our kids' sports, and I moved to the bleachers as a spectator. Those years built my children's character. They nearly broke mine.

As a firefighter, I was trained to respond after something went wrong. But the moment that mattered most in my injury happened before I ever arrived, when someone decided a safety rule did not apply to them. Every code I had enforced suddenly felt personal.

So I changed how I work. I found a passion in ensuring safety standards. I wrote and led the effort to pass an ordinance that charges a fee for large and commercial burns. Our municipality now ensures citations are written to anyone who burns outside the established parameters. I am now a part of a multiagency effort that removes at-risk individuals (especially children) from dwellings found unsafe or unfit under ICC and NFPA standards, and work to abate the violations while finding them safe housing in the meantime. Every person we move to safety reminds me that codes are not paperwork. They are promises.

When I was injured, I was pursuing a bachelor's degree in fire science, but my long recovery forced me to withdraw. I have since enrolled in the Occupational Health and Safety program at East Texas A&M University. It will give me deeper training in hazard recognition, regulatory compliance, and risk management so I can stop incidents before a first responder ever has to answer the call.

My municipality offers no tuition assistance or reimbursement, so every class comes from a household budget already stretched. This scholarship would ease that burden and help me finish what I started. My goal is simple, to ensure the safety of our citizens and staff with the highest education and qualifications that I possibly can obtain.