Nine area fire departments, including Riverhead Fire Department, were on hand this morning to honor Westhampton Beach Fire Department First Assistant Chief William “Bo” Overton at Calverton National Cemetery.
Overton died May 19 at age 71, after a long battle with cancer. He was 71.
Overton was a former Westhampton Beach Village Police Department sergeant and an ex-chief of the Westhampton Beach Fire Department, in which he was a 47-year member, according to a report by The Southampton Press.
Ladder trucks from Ridge, Hampton Bays, East Moriches, Center Moriches, Yaphank, Mastic, Selden and Riverhead lined Middle Country Road in Calverton, just east of the national cemetery’s main entrance, with large U.S. flags suspended from their extended ladders over the center of the roadway. Flag-bearing members of the Patriot Guard Riders lined the entrance to the cemetery, as the funeral cortège, led by the department’s 1958 Mack retired pumper bearing Overton’s flag-draped coffin.
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti
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