Lake Waccamaw community remembers beloved Boys and Girls Homes president
"His footsteps were short, but his footsteps were huge."
LAKE WACCAMAW, NC (WWAY) — A community is in mourning after the sudden loss of the president and CEO of the Boys and Girls Homes of North Carolina.
It’s an unfathomable tragedy that’s, unfortunately, a reality after an apparent accidental house fire claimed the life of 59-year-old Ricky Creech, the president and CEO of the Boys and Girls Homes of North Carolina in Lake Waccamaw.
“It’s been tragic. It’s been horrific. There are a lot of us that keep waking up and wondering if it’s a dream,” Interim President and CEO Ray Cockrell said. “The kids, they were his kids. Everybody knew that. They were his kids.”
On Monday morning, staff and the children in the program had the opportunity to share memories of Creech in a special service held on the campus of the organization.
“One of the continuing themes that we heard through that was family. He intensely loved his family, his immediate family. And he intensely loved his Boys and Girls Homes family,” Cockrell said. “We were all family. Ricky believed that and was a very big part of that.”
The Boys and Girls Homes is a faith-based program. Cockrell says faith is something they will all be relying on heavily through the grieving process.
“One of the things that you heard Ricky talk about all the time with our kids is in our program here, we provide health, healing, and hope,” Cockrell said. “So yes, there is hope. We know where Ricky is now. We know that he’s up there getting things ready and will be waiting with open arms for when we get to see him again.”
More than a policy-maker who sat in an office, Cockrell says Creech made connections with the children in the program from the moment he came to work for it in 2020. The organization helps children who have been removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect — that was an important cause to Creech.
“He said its time to write the next chapter for Boys and Girls Homes and we all have the pen to write that chapter. We talked about it this morning, Ricky very much has his hand on that pen and he is helping us write that story.”
It’s a story that’s yet to be written, but it’s one that will surely have the love of Ricky Creech ingrained into it.
In addition to the children at the Boys and Girls Homes, Creech leaves behind a wife and three children.
Memorial services have not yet been announced.
