Despite Richard Kelpe’s ill health, he remained on the rolls
By Zaz Hollander
Anchorage Daily News (Alaska)
Copyright 2006 Anchorage Daily News
All Rights Reserved
WASILLA, Alaska — As several hundred friends and relatives of Richard Kelpe gathered at Palmer’s St. John Lutheran Church for his funeral, a page issued from emergency scanners around the Matanuska-Susitna Borough — and throughout the church.
A series of two-note signals sounded, designators for Butte fire and ambulance, followed by the voice of a female dispatcher.
“This is the last page for Butte 6-1,” the dispatcher said. “He will always be with us.”
A LifeGuard medical helicopter landed next to the church. Kelpe’s son Ken is a pilot for the Providence Alaska Medical Center air ambulance service.
It was a fitting tribute for a man who spent the last 28 years volunteering as a Butte emergency responder, friends said.
“Probably the most important thing I can say about him was volunteerism was at his soul,” said John Akers, Butte’s ambulance chief. “If you needed something, all you had to do was call him and ask.”
Kelpe, 72, died Oct. 14 of heart disease complicated by lung cancer, according to his obituary. The turnout at his service two days later illustrated Kelpe’s wide-ranging passions: family, church, bowling, and serving his community as a firefighter and ambulance driver since 1978.
Kelpe, in fact, was still on the Butte ambulance rolls when he died, said Clint Vardeman, deputy director of borough emergency services. Until 1999, he served as a firefighter. Then, for health reasons — he survived two open-heart surgeries — Kelpe switched to the ambulance side, Vardeman said, though he sometimes did both.
“He never completely stopped doing fire, actually,” Vardeman said. “He was still capable of driving the fire apparatus and quite often was set up at their water-fill points to (refill) tankers coming in needing more water.”
Born in 1934 in St. Louis, Kelpe came to Alaska in 1978 with his wife, Shirley. That same year Kelpe joined the Butte fire department.
Family members described Kelpe as an avid bowler and volunteer at St. John’s, where he served on the board of trustees.
Kelpe was a consistent responder who came out often on mutual aid calls involving Palmer, said Palmer ambulance chief Ulla Stice.
“He was really a dedicated person. He was always there to help,” Stice said. “I don’t remember a time where we had a mutual aid call where I didn’t see his face there.”