TMCNet: Tragedy hits home for local man from the Newtown area

[December 18, 2012]

Tragedy hits home for local man from the Newtown area

Dec 18, 2012 (The Keene Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Pastor Robert Schipul, like many religious leaders around the country, spoke of the Newtown, Conn., shooting during his sermon in Keene Sunday morning.


At Trinity Lutheran Church, where he has been interim pastor for more than a year, he talked of the images that came out of the tragedy: a little girl, one of the victims, who would not play an angel in her church's holiday pageant; a pastor staying with a family until police told them their child died.

He spoke of love and consolation, of people offering support to those who lost loved ones in the shooting.

But for Schipul, the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 27 dead -- including 20 children -- hit closer to home.

Schipul graduated from Newtown High School in 1959. He knows pastors in Newtown who are trying to find words to comfort parents. He remembers the community, with a population nearly the same size as Keene's, as a quaint New England town that he and his wife, also a Newtown area native, still visit -- as recently as a few weeks ago.

And so Friday morning, as news broke of the shooting at Sandy Hook, he started sending emails to friends, acquaintances and old classmates, to see if everyone was OK.

"I choked right up," he said.

Schipul remembers Newtown as a colonial community so proud of its history in the Revolutionary War that a weathervane still has the dents from soldiers shooting at it, he said.

And when Schipul was in high school, "it was a typical, 'Happy Days' town of the 1950s," he said.

Throughout the years, the community has changed some, according to Schipul. The makeup became more of a mix of people, he said, including families and professionals working in nearby towns.

But some things remain the same, Schipul said, such as the community's support of local businesses and the good reputation of its schools.

There's pride in Schipul's voice as he speaks of Newtown's accomplishments in history, such as its ties to Joseph Engelberger, an engineer and entrepreneur often credited with being the "Father of Robotics." There will be lessons learned from this tragedy of a 20-year-old killing young children just days before Christmas, Schipul said.

And though a shooting like this can happen anywhere, one of the most important lessons to take away is the need to better protect children, Schipul said.

Another local church also has ties to the Connecticut town.

Matthew S. Crebbin, the Hancock Congregational Church minister who left a few years ago, is now senior pastor at Newtown Congregational Church.

Crebbin has spoken with a number of news outlets and at the vigil held Sunday night in Newtown, where President Barack Obama also spoke.

"We needed this," Crebbin said at the vigil, according to the Associated Press. "We needed to be together to show that we are together and united." Attempts to reach Crebbin Monday were unsuccessful.

Rev. Judith Copeland of the Hancock church said many in the community were thinking of him.

And, she said, prayers were being offered to the victims in Newtown.

Jacqueline Palochko can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1409, or jpalochko@keenesentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @JPalochkoKS.

___ (c)2012 The Keene Sentinel (Keene, N.H.) Visit The Keene Sentinel (Keene, N.H.) at www.sentinelsource.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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