Group shot of South Cobb Rotary Club leaders with Barry Krebs (in yellow vest)

[Editor’s note: Councilwoman Auch pointed three transcription errors in her quotes below, which I’ve corrected. The placement of my recording device was not good for the hall, and certain phrases were barely audible. My apologies, and if anyone else I quoted thinks their quotes were garbled get in touch]

Barry Krebs was named the 2024 South Cobb Citizen of the Year by the South Cobb Rotary Club.

Krebs is a well-known and avid volunteer in South Cobb, whose work includes projects with Keep Cobb Beautiful, HOPE Family Resource Center, the South Cobb Lions Club, First Christian Church of Mableton, and the Sweetwater Mission, among many other service organizations.

Wayne Blackstone introduced the award with a little historical background.

“I’m gonna give a little background of the event that we’re having today,” he said. “It’s been a long time now since a few folks got together in 1985 to brainstorm ways to bring positive attention to good things that go on in the south Cobb area.”

“The idea to spotlight our special people and their contributions to South Cobb to make South Cobb a better place to live and work 39 years ago, the first honoring Jim Dalton …”

“Since then recipients have come from all walks of life: teachers, teachers, aides, physicians, legislators, industrial, community volunteers, bankers, ministers, mental health advocates, who represent a wide cross-section of special citizens of the South Cobb area,” Blackstone said.

South Cobb Rotary Club board member Debbie Ginocchio, who is also the development director of Sweetwater Mission, gave a brief biography of Krebs and a report on the substantial amount of volunteer work he’s done since his retirement from Kellogs, where he had risen to the position of Southeast Regional Director for convenience store sales.

“His first experience with working with the community was when his wife, who was working as a branch manager for a local bank, was challenged by her superior to get active in the community to attract business,” she said. “His wife dragged Barry to the Lions Club meeting about 10 years ago.”

She said that after his wife, Kim Krebs, convinced him to go to that meeting, it didn’t take him long to “get enthusiastic about serving the community.”

“He led environmental efforts of the club with weekly litter cleanups, which caught the attention of then-Commissioner (Lisa) Cupid, who recruited him as an appointee to the Keep Cobb Beautiful board of directors,” she said.

After he was called to the lectern to accept the award, Krebs proceeded to thank the volunteers and leaders of the organizations he works with by name.

The people he pointed out included Barry Smith, minister at Mableton First Christian Church, Carolyn Turner of HOPE Family Resource Center, Kimberly White, the Executive Director of Keep Cobb Beautiful, and Jeff Padgett, who is also an avid volunteer with the Adopt-A-Mile program of Keep Cobb Beautiful.

After Krebs spoke, he sat in a chair up front where volunteers from the audience were supposed to roast him, but no one had anything embarrassing or negative to say about him, even in jest.

Barry Smith said, “Everyone calls him Barry number one, and I’m Barry number two. We joke about that.”

Smith is also a regular at community cleanups and other volunteer events, and his church is very active in the South Cobb community.

Smith told of Krebs’ role in a multigenerational Sunday School at First Christian Church of Mableton, where Krebs was always ready to give guidance and advice to young people.

Jeff Padgett, also on the Keep Cobb Beautiful board, described his work with Krebs in participating in the regular community cleanups.

He said, “We’ve been we’ve been doing this for about seven years. So we really enjoy it, man. He’s out there every weekend, on Saturday mornings, cleaning up trash.”

Mableton District 4 Councilwoman Patricia Auch said, “I wish I could tell you the story about how we met. But the truth is, I don’t remember the exact moment we did.”

“Barry is the kind of person who doesn’t call attention to himself,” she said. “If you haven’t noticed by how he’s received the awards today and how he’s accepting it.”

“He pointed out every person in the room to tell them why they’re worthy. I think that really is a testament to Barry’s character.”

She then spoke about a time when she showed up for a cleanup in a gated community in Mableton, and no one was there.

“The gate was blocked, and I felt like I’d been stood up,” she said. “I’d given up my Saturday morning to pick up other people’s trash on the other side of town, and no one showed up to help.”

“So I kept driving to see if the meeting place had been changed, and then I saw a guy in a yellow vest with a familiar face,” Auch said.

“It was Barry Krebs,” she said. “I pulled into a nearby parking lot, and Barry was quick to come up the road where he was picking up litter to greet me.”

“But then he said, “Oh, I have something else for you’. and he went to his vehicle and pulled out a CD,” she said. “And he came back and said, ‘I thought you and your husband might this because you guys are from Alabama.'”

It was a CD of local Alabama bands.

“This was unexpected because I didn’t know Barry well,” she said. “But it was apparent that we had engaged in small talk before because he remembered where I was from and that my husband went to Auburn. It was so nice and unexpected.”

Carolyn Turner of HOPE Family Resource Center said that Krebs was there whenever he was needed. She named two examples. One was his help in navigating legal issues around taxes. The second was coming to help with donated produce on a very hot day.

“Barry has a heart for this community, South Cobb, Mableton, all around here,” she said. “He takes pictures everywhere.”

“But that’s because he has a heart for what he does and the community and this there’s no more proper award than he can get here today,” she said. “And I want to thank the South Cobb Rotary Club …”

Kimberly White, the Exective Director of Keep Cobb Beautiful said when she first asked Krebs to be board chairman of the organization he refused, but she chipped away at him until he said yes.

Then after a few years he said it was time for someone else to take on the job.

Sweetwater Mission’s Debbie Ginocchio said that Krebs made sure that news of the organization and its activities was widely distributed to the media at a time when it needed to get the word out.

Kim Krebs, his wife, told a story from the early years of his volunteer work.

“I remember one time we were talking about we will have to get in shape. We’d start walking … before Apple Watch it was this thing called Fitbit.”

“But Barry doesn’t like things on his wrist. So they have one that you put in your pocket,” she said.

“And he says this is ‘this is so boring.'”

She said Krebs had to have a purpose, and getting in shape didn’t seem to be enough of a purpose. So he began picking up trash on the route while they walked.