Hundreds Gather To Honor Firefighter Killed In Motorcycle Crash
The picture shows Bob in front of a barbecue grill, leaning into the camera, with a big smile on his face.
McCullough's granddaughter took the picture and friends and family say it captures the kind of person he was.
"If he wasn't helping you or if you asked him to help you to do something he couldn't do it because he was out helping someone else," said Captain Rudy Alvarado with the Redmond Fire Department. "If he couldn't do it, it wasn't because he didn't want to."
Alvarado worked alongside the former Battalion Chief at the Redmond Fire Department for more than 20 years.
He was just 23-years old when he first met McCullough and the two developed a friendship. Alvarado says McCullough helped build the department into the full-time, professional department that it is today. There were only 15 firefighters when Alvarado started. Today, there are 125.
McCullough always instilled the values of "true firefighters" through this growth, and made sure he lived what he preached.
"You're a firefighter 24 hours a day, whether you're here or not and that's what Bob was," he said "This was not a job, it was his career, his lifestyle."
McCullough's "other" family describe him as man devoted to them.
His daughters Kathy Hultz and Stephanie McDonald remember the simple things -- the weekly phone calls, the afternoons he spent with his granddaughters, and the weekends they spent together.
"His smile, his hugs, just him being there, calling me on the phone," said Hultz.
"I'll just miss hearing the phone ring everyday off at 8 o'clock in the morning," McDonald said. "Nobody called us that early except him. He'd say 'good morning, what are you up to today?' "
Motorcycles became McCullough's passion after he retired from the fire department in 2001. McDonald recalled a recent trip her dad took to Napa Valley in California. Alvarado remembers McCullough's trips to North Cascades National Park and Lake Chelan.
He said friends would always tease McCullough about how clean he kept his motorcycle.
"It was like it came off the showroom floor," he said.
But that passion for motorcycles ultimately killed McCullough. He was driving eastbound on I-90 when an SUV in the westbound lane drove through the median and crashed into McCullough head on. He died instantly.
"A man as great as Bob... he's not supposed to leave," said Alvarado. "He's supposed to be here all the time."
But more than 800 people gathered at the City Church in Kirkland to honor McCullough. His friends and family say it speaks volumes about the kind of person he was.
