Community helps Salem family after fire

By D.A. WILKINSON

VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU

SALEM — Terry Krepps has played a “very spooky and very scary” Jacob Marley in “A Christmas Carol.”

So says Dr. Richard Fawcett, who has directed the classic story at the Salem Community Theatre.

It’s Marley who warns Ebenezer Scrooge of the danger of being a miser. Krepps said he has played the part for 12 years.

Dr. Fawcett, and Columbiana County Municipal Court Judge Mark Frost, who is active in the theater, say Krepps is nothing like a miser.

“He’s always willing to lend a hand,” said Judge Frost. If someone needed money, Krepps would be the first to raise it, the judge added.

“I like to help people,” Krepps admitted.

Now he and his family are being helped after a fire heavily damaged their Aetna Street home early Feb. 5.

Fortunately, no one was hurt in the fire.

Krepps and his wife, Melody, have three children, Joey, 14, Krista, 13, and Tyler, 11.

Joey has asthma, and is very sensitive to odors of smoke, Melody said.

“I have a sensitive nose and a good smell,” Joey said.

In the night, he heard a sound, got up, and saw a lot of smoke. He went back and alerted his brother, who was in the top bunk in their bedroom, then his parents and sister.

Melody called the fire department as the family fled to a neighbor’s home.

“It was cold,” Joey said. “We only had on pajamas.”

Melody believes the electrical fire started in the upstairs bathroom.

It wasn’t Melody’s first experience with a house fire.

She said when she was about 10 years old and living in Florida, her home caught on fire. She said that because of the location of the fire, she had to go outside and climb a tree to awaken her father, Albert Hobbs Sr.

“My son saved my life, and I saved my daddy’s life,” Melody said.

The family is waiting for its an insurance company to decide if the house can be rebuilt. If so, the couple said it may take three to six months to complete the work.

In the meantime, the family is living at 1184 E. State St.

Many people have helped the family. “The Red Cross helped us big time,” Terry said.

Client councils at the Columbiana County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities also heard the news and got involved.

Council members at the Robert Bycroft School and Employment Development Inc. near Lisbon used their own money to purchase a $200 gift card at Wal-Mart for the family. Clients and staffers at other county MRDD facilities also collected clothes and food for the family.

Terry and Melody are both employed at Fresh Mark, a Salem meat plant. Terry also works as a disc jockey and sound man. The storage center where Terry keeps his equipment has given him financial help, and a local kennel is housing their two dogs while the family is in its temporary digs.

Like the repentant Scrooge, Terry says he believes in helping others so they in turn can help more people.

And Joey is following in his father’s footsteps. He played a street urchin in the last production of “A Christmas Carol.”

wilkinson@vindy.com