A member of Kenmore’s volunteer fire department who eventually became its paid chief before moving on to head up King County’s arson investigation unit, Les “Bud” Eaton is also known for being the current and longtime president of the Kenmore Community Club.

In 2001, Eaton helped lead the effort to rebuild the club’s hall just off Northeast Bothell Way on Northeast 175th Street. Eaton said crews of volunteers helped paint the building inside and out, fixed the floor and generally restored the hall to what he said it used to be.

Inside that building Feb. 2, the Kenmore Heritage Society will recognize Eaton for his service to the community with the 10th annual McMaster award, named after John McMaster, who gave the city its name in the early 1900s. According to the Heritage Society, the annual award honors a living person who has made significant contributions to Kenmore. The event is free and open to the public; dessert and social hour starts at 6:30 p.m. and the program begins at 7:15 p.m.

Past winners have included, for example, the city’s second mayor, Dick Taylor, who helped with Kenmore’s incorporation; and, Priscilla Droge, Kenmore’s unofficial historian and chief editor of the book “Kenmore by the Lake: A Community History.”

While the public might best remember him as Kenmore’s former fire chief, Eaton, 69, said he didn’t set out to be a firefighter. His first jobs were working as a mechanic at a couple of different car dealerships.

“Those were the muscle-car days and we all loved our cars,” he said.

Eaton joined the Kenmore volunteer fire department in 1963 following in his father’s footsteps.

“I found I liked it,” he said.

At the time, the department consisted of all of six people, including Eaton. Still, three years after he began as a volunteer, Eaton was hired as a full-time, paid firefighter. During his first year on the job, he quickly was assigned as Kenmore’s fire-prevention officer.

“I had no itching to do that at all,” Eaton added. “I wanted to go out and fight fires and drive the big, red fire truck.”

Eaton soon learned the fire prevention required a lot of inspections of new and existing buildings. That led him to take a few college classes and he soon branched out into fire investigations.

“I always kind of wanted to be a cop,” Eaton said, adding sniffing out the clues at a fire scene allowed him to exercise his investigatory leanings.

“It’s going into a burned-out building, it’s all black and white and white and black and you have to find out why that fire started,” he added.

Eaton ended up traveling around the state to teach arson investigation at community colleges and various fire departments, an aspect of his career he said he really enjoyed.

Even as he talked about his fire-investigation duties, Eaton noted that in a small department such as Kenmore’s, he was able to serve a dual role, going on fire and medical emergency runs and still serving as Kenmore’s fire-prevention officer until 1980. His work with fire prevention also allowed him to move up in the ranks possibly quicker than he might have otherwise, Eaton said, and he served as chief from 1981 to 1989. He then took a position with King County as a fire marshall. He later moved back into arson investigation and retired as acting head of the county’s arson unit.

Along the way, throughout his career as a firefighter, Eaton said he volunteered for various organizations from the Northshore Rotary to the Bothell Masonic Lodge. Besides his extensive involvement with the Community Club, Eaton also is currently vice president of the Bothell High School Alumni Association.

By the way, Eaton never did lose that early enthusiasm for those muscle cars. He currently owns five, all Fords and all convertibles, with model years ranging from 1950 to 1966. He finds it hard to pick a favorite, but settles on a ’66 Thunderbird because it handles the best. Eaton restored the cars himself, though he admits to having farmed out the body work.

With two children and four grandchildren, Eaton and wife Annette (who manages the community club) have been married for 47 years, living in the same Kenmore home for the same number of years. Besides cars and volunteering, Eaton admits to a passion for hunting and fishing. But he returns again and again to the idea of helping people, something he said he learned from his father. Eaton describes himself as a positive person and talks about completing “attitude adjustments” on those who aren’t.

“For the most part, it’s the positive people you see out and about, who get things done,” Eaton said.