Scholarship fund honors memory of son

A teen who looked forward to living with his father never got that chance.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- Caleb Roach really wanted to come to Austintown to live with his father and spend his senior year at Fitch High School.
He was supposed to come from his mother's home in Fredericksburg, Va., to Austintown on May 1. His father, Richard, of Chaucer Lane, was looking forward to his arrival.
But Caleb never made it here. If you see the fliers his dad is putting up around the township, you can read about where he went instead.
The fliers explain that he went to heaven. Caleb, 17, lived in Fredericksburg with his remarried mother since 1994, and had spent two weeks in April over spring break with Roach, 37, a sales and service representative for Cintas in North Jackson, and his sister, 15-year-old Caitlin.
Caitlin is already a student in Austintown, having come up from Fredericksburg a year ago. While Caleb was visiting, he announced that he, too, wanted to live there permanently, his dad said.
"He just said he was having a hard time in Virginia, in aspects of life," said Roach at his home last week.
Another influence in his decision could have been the girl, a senior, whom he'd met over the two weeks he was with his dad. They'd made plans to go to her prom at Fitch.
He didn't even want to go back to finish the year at his current school, Roach said. But his father told him to go back and finish, and he went back to Fredericksburg April 26.
"We got it worked out with his school to finish his assignments, and he was to come up here May 1," Roach said. Meanwhile, Roach rented him a tux for the prom.
Caleb had a car, a 1994 Plymouth Breeze, that he'd bought after saving up his own money. "He was always buying things for it," said Roach.
The accident
Something went wrong with the car April 28, a few days before he was supposed to return to Austintown, and that car trouble would lead to a tragedy.
"I got the call at five after eight in the evening," Roach said. "He'd had it jacked up, and the jack went out. The car landed on his head and killed him instantly."
"I collapsed," he said. "I was hysterical. That's the first time I'd ever hyperventilated."
Now, he said, he still has a hard time accepting that he will never see his son, who seemed to be on a mission in life to make people happy.
"He was never serious. All that came out of his mouth was just to make you laugh."
In Fredericksburg, Caleb worked in a bagel shop and coached youth soccer and basketball. He collected friends, from the lady in the auto parts store who cried when Roach stopped in to see if employees there remembered his son to the co-workers at the bagel shop who "all gave me stories." Three hundred people were at his funeral May 3 in Fredericksburg.
"There are days when I think I'm getting better," Roach said. "Then it hits me again, and I break down." It was very hard, he said, to cancel that rented tuxedo.
Roach said he and family members talked about the need they felt to do something to keep Caleb's "name and spirit" alive. They wanted the memorial to be a help to people. "He was so willing to help others."
Scholarship fund
Roach set up the Caleb Zachary Roach Memorial Fund at Charter One Bank in Cornersburg to accept donations toward scholarships for students at Fitch and also at East Liverpool High School, where Roach graduated. Caleb's grandmother, Mary Narcavish, still lives there.
He said he intends to post the fliers, and also hopes to place donation cans around the township.
He's hoping that others will give him ideas for fundraisers to keep the donations coming. So far, one has been set up: Donations will be accepted at a car night at the Sunrise Inn, 510 E. Market St., Warren. The event begins at 4 p.m. July 16.
Roach said that anyone who has ideas for fundraisers can e-mail him at roachie68@zoominternet.net.
Donations can be made at any Charter One location, or they can be mailed to Charter One Bank, 3525 Canfield Road, Youngstown, Ohio, 44511.