Chief Jack Holliday Memorial Fund

Established in 2014, the Chief Jack Holliday Memorial Fund was created as a permanent memorial to their husband and father by wife Margie Vaughn and children Jack Holliday Jr. and Susan Kennedy. The family serves as donor advisors to the fund and favor awards which address fire safety needs in the community. Through this fund, they also wish to support the Marion Concert Band, for whom Jack played trumpet.

Chief Jack L. Holliday Sr., made a lifelong career as a firefighter, beginning as a volunteer with the Sylvania Fire Department, near Toledo, where he was born. He served at the Sylvania and Ottawa Hills Fire Departments, 1959-1975. Then, after serving one year as a fire chief in Fort Hays, Kansas, moved to Marion to become fire chief for the Marion Township Fire Department, where he served for 18 years until his retirement in 1994.

Chief Holliday was instrumental in the founding of the Tri-Rivers/Marion General Hospital School of Paramedicine. He believed in being “tough but fair,” and will be remembered for his decisive action and concern for his paramedics, firefighters, and family.

Another passion of Jack’s was music. He loved to play the trumpet and favored the marching songs of John Phillip Sousa. Born in 1935, Jack was a graduate of Burnham High School and a U.S. Army veteran.