By BOB SHRALUKA
WZBD.com
When Caleb Hankenson recently became an official member of the Pike Township Fire Department, that made it two Bellmont High School graduates with Pike, Brian Hakes having recently marked his fourth year there.
Meanwhile, the city of Huntington employs two other Bellmont grads as first responders: Firefighter Jake Brown and Police Detective Jordan Corral.
Hankenson (at right in photo with Hakes), 25, is a 2017 BHS grad, the son of Brigitte and Steve Hankenson of Decatur. The new Pike firefighter, who recently moved to Indianapolis, is single.
He graduated from Ball State with a degree in Exercise Science.
Hakes, a 2012 BHS grad, is a diving and rope instructor with the Pike department; he is the son of Jill and Greg Hakes of Decatur.
He earned a business degree from Indiana Tech, where he was on a baseball scholarship for four years and became a First Team NAIA All American his senior season.
Hakes, 29, who is also an EMT, lives in Fishers with his wife, Bobbi, daughter Blakely, and son Beau, a recent addition to the family.
The Pike Township Department, which covers 44 square miles on the northwest side of Indy, has 175 professional firefighters and medics working out of five stations.
Brown, the son of Leslie and Cary Brown, joined the Huntington FD three years after his 2013 graduation from Bellmont and thus has seven years of service with the department.
He has firefighter 1 and 2 certifications, is an EMT, and has gone through training such as technical rescue, vehicle extrication, and hazardous materials.
Jake and his wife, Laura, are marking their second anniversary this month, but have been together for five years.
Brown and Hakes were teammates on the 2011 Bellmont football team which won a Sectional championship.
Corral, who has been working with the Huntington PD drug task force, was recently promoted to detective.
After graduating from Miami (Ohio) University with a degree in criminology, Corral joined the Huntington department in June of 2018.
Jordan and his wife, Sara, and their son reside in Huntington. The son of Leonard Jr. and Kim Corral is a third-generation law-enforcement officer, both his father and grandfather, Dick Noack, being former police chiefs in Decatur.