{"id":37944,"date":"2026-08-03T12:57:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T16:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=37944"},"modified":"2026-08-03T12:57:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T16:57:37","slug":"father-son-gave-74-years-to-decatur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/03\/father-son-gave-74-years-to-decatur\/","title":{"rendered":"Father, son gave 74 years to Decatur"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s more than a little incredible that one person can spend 49 years working for one community. To think of two men, father and son, giving that city 74 years of their lives is beyond incredible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only did Bill Carpenter spend 49 years as an employee of the City of Decatur before recently stepping down as its assistant water superintendent, but his father, Wayne, had devoted 25 years to the same community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wayne, who died in December of 2018, worked that many years as both city engineer and as water department superintendent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Wayne Carpenter<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bill, who says he has no set plans for spending his retirement, was, of course, born and raised in Decatur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the late mayor Harold Miller who worked with Bill at Gerber’s market and asked Bill if he wanted a job with the city. Forty-nine years later…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill says he is proudest of helping with the design and construction of Decatur’s two water plants built in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He took 12 weeks of water school to get a water operator certification, with continuing education hours required every three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of his favorite past-times was the 25-plus years has been spent as Scoutmaster of Troop 60 in Decatur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before his retirement, Carpenter was honored in a special ceremony by Commonwealth Engineering of Fort Wayne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The occasion was especially meaningful for Commonwealth’s Resident Project Representative (RPR) Darrell Drake, who worked for Bill for 15 years before joining Commonwealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Darrell Drake (left) and Bill Carpenter (Commonwealth photo<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCongratulations, Bill, on an incredible career dedicated to serving your community,\u201d Commonwealth said in a statement. \u201cWe wish you all the best in retirement!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com It’s more than a little incredible that one person can spend 49 years working<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":37945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-37944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Carpenter-Drake.jpg?fit=526%2C402&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37947,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37944\/revisions\/37947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}