Our mission is to provide volunteer resources as trained emergency reserve personnel in support of EMA activity with special emphasis on amateur radio RACES support for the DeSoto County MS Emergency Management Agency and served agencies for the region.

In DeSoto County, Mississippi, we have one group of EMA Reservists comprised of three group classifications of members whom are all unpaid volunteers:

• Reservists
• ARES
• RACES

We provide back up support for all of DeSoto County Communications where needed during outages and emergencies. We also provide an EOC presence and operation during severe storms and tornado warnings as well as some special events that occur around the county.

You do not have to be an Amateur Radio Operator to volunteer to be a DeSoto County EMA Reservist; however, you do need to have a valid Amateur Radio Operators License to be part of the ARES and RACES organizations.

We work directly under the support and supervision of the DeSoto County EMA Director, Chris Olson. With KF5WVJ, Ricky Chambers, as ARRL Emergency Coordinator, KG5TTU, Brad Kerley as ARRL Assistant Emergency Coordinator, and AG5FG, Andrew Luscomb as ARRL Assistant Emergency Coordinator, we direct the Amateur Radio side of operations when a communication emergency arises.

Since we fall under the ESF-2 FEMA Category, we do have a few FEMA required online self study courses that need to be taken with a copy of the completion certificate provided. Additionally, there is some training that will be provided during our montly meetings. These courses can be taken before or after you have applied for membership to our group. Since we are a volunteer group, there may be a few items you will be asked to purchase for use in case of deployment with the majority of the tools and equipment being provided by DeSoto County.

The main requirements as a member of this organization are to attend meetings and participate in events throughout the year that we are asked to attend for public service and outreach. There will be a background check required during the application process for the EMA side.

Our meetings are held monthly at the time and location noted on the Home Page. The best way to join our group is to contact Ricky at [email protected] and request an application, or attend one of our meetings.