Dr. Gre­gory Cooper

Greg came to First Bap­tist in 1998 as the Senior Pas­tor.  He is a native Ohioan born and raised in Newark.  He and his wife Marla have two daughters—Stacy (24) a recent grad­u­ate of Ohio State Uni­ver­sity, and Marissa (21) a stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Cincin­nati.  Greg’s life call­ing is to help build sig­nif­i­cant lives through teach­ing peo­ple how to imple­ment God’s word in every area of their lives.  His teach­ing style is very relaxed and practical.

Greg is a grad­u­ate of Blue­field Col­lege in Vir­ginia with a degree in psy­chol­ogy; South­west­ern Bap­tist The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary in Texas with a Mas­ter of Divin­ity and Mid-America Bap­tist The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary in Ten­nessee with a Doc­tor of Min­istry degree.

In his spare time, Greg loves to play golf and ride on his motor­cy­cle with his wife Marla.  Greg’s least favorite thing to do?  Work­ing in the yard.  Some things you may not know.  Greg’s favorite series of movies is Rocky, his favorite food is pizza and he has a dog named Ozzie.

Jeff Krig­baum, Youth Leader

Jeff grew up in Canal Win­ches­ter, OH and has been a mem­ber of FBC Grove­port for 15 years.   He attended Ohio Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity and grad­u­ated with a Bach­e­lors degree in Psy­chol­ogy and Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion in 2004.  Jeff is the Direc­tor and Founder of Pride Soc­cer Club, which is a non-profit youth soc­cer orga­ni­za­tion.   Jeff stepped in as youth leader in Sep­tem­ber of 2008.  In addi­tion to lead­ing the youth group, Jeff is also involved in lead­ing the Upward sports min­istry at Grove­port.  Jeff is hap­pily mar­ried to his high school sweet­heart, Rebecca, who is an ele­men­tary school teacher and they have a new­born son Har­ri­son.  Dur­ing his free time, Jeff enjoys play­ing sports, work­ing out, camp­ing, kayak­ing and spend­ing time with his family.

Lisa Nor­man, Admin­is­tra­tive Assistant

Lisa has been attend­ing FBC since con­cep­tion (hers) — she was two weeks old when her par­ents start­ing bring­ing her to church.  Born and raised in the Grove­port area and a grad­u­ate of Grove­port Madi­son High School in 1984.

She met her hus­band, Eric Nor­man on a blind date and mar­ried him two years later.  Eric and Lisa have been mar­ried for 19 won­der­fully mar­velous years.  Eric is a fire­fighter for the City of Colum­bus and has been employed there for 19 years.

Lisa has been work­ing for FBC since April, 2001, as the Admin­is­tra­tive Assis­tant for the Senior Pas­tor and the Wor­ship Pas­tor.  She very much enjoys the pastor’s she works for (She kind of has to say that, doesn’t she?) and her co-workers.

Her likes: Snicker’s, straw­ber­ries, flip flops, macadamia nut cook­ies, san­dals, laugh­ing, read­ing, water ski­ing, boots, warm weather…did she men­tion shoes?, trav­el­ing, thun­der­storms, the ocean, shop­ping, and her dog Ziggie.

Her dis­likes: raisins, cucum­bers, toma­toes, cel­ery, cold weather, black licorice, crazy dri­vers, scary movies, bats and spiders.

Her hob­bies: spend­ing time at Seneca Lake – boat­ing, ski­ing and sun­ning with her hubby, friends and family.

Bar­bara Reece, Finan­cial Administrator

Bar­bara was born and raised in Colum­bus Ohio. She was a grad­u­ate of Grove­port Madi­son High School in 1986 and a grad­u­ate of Nation­wide Beauty Acad­emy in 1987. She is a licensed cos­me­tol­o­gist who spe­cial­ized in skin and nail care. She retired from this indus­try after 21 great years.

Bar­bara is mar­ried to Jim Reece. They were mar­ried in August 1989, and were blessed with 2 won­der­ful chil­dren Austin 21 and Bri­ana 16 and then were blessed again in 2007 when Willie 22 adopted us to be his new family.

Bar­bara received Christ and was bap­tized at FBC in Dec of 1996. She and her fam­ily have attended FBC ever since. After sev­eral sub­tle pokes from God and not so sub­tle hits over the head. God made it clear that she needed to fol­low Him and what he wanted for her which began her employ­ment at FBC in July 2006 as the Finan­cial Admin­is­tra­tor. It’s funny how things work out when you slow down and lis­ten to God. He really does know what is best!

Her likes: Reese cups, Oreo ice cream, shoes, shop­ping and a clean house!

Her dis­likes: mean peo­ple, surgery, liver and onions and a dirty house

Her hob­bies: spend­ing time with fam­ily, motor­cy­cle rid­ing with hus­band, crafts, tan­gle­word puz­zles and watch­ing movies.

Patty Sow­ers, Direc­tor of Children’s Ministries

Patty, a true Buck­eye at heart, was born and raised in Colum­bus, OH. She was raised in a Chris­t­ian home, but did not come to know the Lord Jesus as her own per­sonal Sav­ior until her fresh­man year of col­lege. Patty earned her Bachelor’s degree from Ohio Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­sity (for­merly Cir­cleville Bible Col­lege) where she majored in Teacher Edu­ca­tion. Patty served in var­i­ous capac­i­ties in sev­eral churches before God called her to serve Him and the chil­dren of Grove­port. She taught sixth grade for nine years at a local Chris­t­ian school where she con­tin­ued to learn and earn CEU’s in the edu­ca­tion field.

Patty and her hus­band, Rick, have been hap­pily mar­ried for more than 20 years and have two beau­ti­ful chil­dren. Patty spends much of her “spare” time res­cu­ing house­hold items from the jaws of the new fam­ily pup that was res­cued from a local shel­ter, vol­un­teer­ing with the Teays Val­ley High School bands, and encour­ag­ing her son’s ath­letic endeav­ors. Her hob­bies include cook­ing, bak­ing, read­ing, play­ing in the yard, and eat­ing choco­late. You will not catch her with seafood on her plate, and she will not utter the name of that state up North… GO BUCKS!!

Julie Heck­ethorn, Day­care Director

I was born and raised in the Cen­tral Ohio area. I have been blessed with two beau­ti­ful daugh­ters, Ash­ley and Jes­sica.  Ash­ley just fin­ished serv­ing in the US Navy and Jes­sica will be attend­ing Colum­bus State full­time in the fall of 2013.

Grow­ing up in church and attend­ing church with many of my fam­ily mem­bers gave me a strong Chris­t­ian back­ground to rely on and trust through life’s many tri­als. I was very for­tu­nate to have strong par­ents and grand­par­ents to help me on this jour­ney.  My grand­par­ents “planted” sev­eral local churches dur­ing my child­hood, one of which I am for­tu­nate to be a mem­ber of today.

In my free time, I enjoy vol­un­teer­ing with a local min­istry, vis­it­ing my daugh­ter in Okla­homa, attend­ing Jessica’s var­i­ous extracur­ric­u­lar func­tions, read­ing, sewing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in var­i­ous sports.

Being with chil­dren daily and watch­ing them change daily is truly a bless­ing.  The “ah-ha” moment when a child finally fig­ures out the strug­gle is the best; the amaze­ment on their face is priceless!!