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Stephen R. Newsome

Get him talking about his yard and his projects and Stephen Newsome can go on forever.

Jane Fishman

Framed by scads of elephant ears, Newsome's house, where he's lived most of his life, sits on a jam-packed corner lot in Meldrim on property his grandfather once owned.

"There's nothing like growing up in a small town," he said of his Effingham County roots. "This is the best town in the world. I'm never going to live anywhere else." Newsome, 32, is all about family, all about community. The woman he married three years ago – his high school sweetheart – grew up on his street, Withlacoochee, "in the last house on the left."

When his grandfather, who has since passed away, had a stroke, Newsome left Georgia Southern University to care for him. To make money, he started a pressure-washing business, sold cars and, briefly, worked as a bellman at the Radisson.

After that, without missing a beat or thinking twice, he moved his grandmother, who has Alzheimer's, into his home and under his care. And this summer, when his wife, Jackie, was diagnosed with cancer, Newsome took an eight-week break from his job as a freight conductor with CSX railroad to help her through four rough surgeries.

It was right around this time he saw the fire across the street. "It was 10:30 or so at night and I was walking around the house, checking on the dogs, talking on the phone, when I heard a car horn blow a couple times," he said. "That's when I noticed Mr. Bill, an elderly guy who's on oxygen, standing next to his Toyota truck."

He knew something was wrong because his neighbor, whose wife passed away last year, rarely walks at all, let alone at night.

Then he saw the orange glow in the windows. He ran through his front door, threw the phone to his wife, told her to call 911 and grabbed his railroad lantern and fire extinguisher.

"When you have a grandmother with Alzheimer's you know where everything like that is," he said.

By this time a neighboring teenager had showed up. He tried to enter the house, but came out choking from smoke. "I tried crawling in on my stomach," Newsome said, "but I wasn't getting anywhere so I ran back home, grabbed a 100-foot hose and hooked it up to his water spigot."

Because he used to play in that house as a youngster, Newsome found the water faucet immediately. "I also knew where the power box was so I slapped the power off, too," he said.

When he slithered back in with the hose, he saw the man's electric scooter on fire. He also saw the chair with the oxygen.

"Then I saw 10 more bottles of oxygen all in a row and I thought, 'I'm fixing to die,'" Newsome said, tears filling his eyes at the memory. "I hate to tear up like this – I'm really sorry – but I started thinking about what my family would do without me. My grandma's everything to me and after everything my wife's been through..."

With the hose, he and his neighbor John put out the fire in about 15 minutes. Today, Mr. Bill is staying with relatives in Florida. His house stands damaged and empty.

"It's so strange," Newsome added. "When I was 10, I used to go over to that house all the time and hang out with the man who lived there. Most people thought he was mean, but I kind of liked him. He'd tell me about the war. I actually saved his life in this very same house years later too."

But then, Newsome has a habit of seeing the best in people and of following that vision with action.

This weekend, Newsome's grandmother, who everyone calls Granny, is joining other relatives for a 10-day cruise, the cruise a gift from her grandson. On Saturday, Newsome joins his wife, who works in accounts payable at Candler, for a fund-raising cancer awareness walk in Forsyth Park.

Then, on Saturday night, Newsome heads over to the Meldrim Halloween Carnival, which raises money for the Meldrim Civics Club, where he's agreed to be the target in the "Dunk the Hero" booth.

"I think about the fire all the time," Newsome said. "What happened, what could have happened. It's not that I did anything amazing. I was just lucky I knew where everything was."

The way Meldrim is lucky to have him.

Jane Fishman's column runs Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. She can be reached at gofish5@earthlink.net or at 652-0313.