Firefighter With a Flair for Jeopardy!
March 5, 2002
Robert McPadden wanted to do two things in his life. “He wanted to become a firefighter, like his father, and he wanted to marry his wife,” said McPadden’s longtime friend Sean Cummins. “And he got to do them both.” McPadden, a 30-year-old native of Pearl River, N.Y., married Kate, a woman he met after a St. Patrick’s Day celebration where McPadden played drums with Pearl River’s Ancient Order of Hibernians bagpipe band. After waiting for seven years for an opening in the fire department, he fulfilled that dream as well. During those seven years, McPadden -— acclaimed among friends and family members for his skill at “Jeopardy!” -— got his master’s degree in criminal justice. “He wasn’t some library geek,” Cummins said. McPadden just knew a lot of things, did a lot of reading, had many interests. “He had a very quick wit,” said Cummins, who now lives in Las Vegas. “He was always able to get the last word in.”On Sept. 11, Cummins and the rest of Engine Company 23 were among the first firefighters on the scene of the World Trade Center. By the end of the day, he would be lost. “He wasn’t even supposed to be there that day,” Cummins said. McPadden was scheduled to be off.McPadden had just purchased a new home in Pearl River. He and Kate had planned to move back there from Westchester to be closer to their friends and family, and he needed to take off on Sept. 12 to sign the papers. Talking about McPadden, so many different things come to mind for Cummins: the two of them in high school, a pair of “skateboarding punk rockers,” McPadden’s three-point ability in basketball, intense games of “Jeopardy!” “Bob was one of the best men I’ll ever meet,” he said. —-Tom Coombe (The Morning Call)

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