A TROY alumni couple and their family have managed to relocate to a new town, buy and renovate a historic home, launch a campaign for the city council and appear on a new television series on HGTV.
And home school their children.
Kelvin (’02) and Kristen (’13, ’14) Robinson are featured on HGTV’s “Home Town,” a show based in Laurel, Miss. that focuses on renovation of older homes and the city’s rebirth. The episode airs at 9 p.m. tonight. A preview and the full episode can also be watched online.
“Laurel is on the uptick and is undergoing redevelopment. We’re trying to restore it to its ‘glory days’,” said Kelvin Robinson, an Army major now stationed at Camp Shelby, just a few miles south of Laurel.
They had formally been stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, and “some type of way my wife found out about an open casting call for the show in Laurel. It was a good fit. We partnered with HGTV and ended up getting a great deal on a house,” he said.
The Bessemer, Alabama, native spent his four years in Troy on an ROTC scholarship and living in Alumni Hall, where he was an RA his junior and senior years. He pledge Omega Phi Psi, and the quarter after he started his wife, Kristen, a Thomasville native, started school. They started dating their junior year.
Post deployment, Kristen completed her undergraduate degree in business administration/information systems and then earned a Master of Public Administration degree with a graduate certificate in governmental contracting. She negotiated federal contracts and provided economic business opportunities for civilians, soldiers, and veterans across the country.
Now, she home schools the couple’s three children, ages 12, 7 and 6. She’s currently running for the Ward 5 spot on Laurel’s city council – one of only 10 municipalities in Mississippi to use the mayor-city council form of government.
The show, hosted by Laurel craftsman Ben Napier and his designer wife Erin Napier, entrepreneurs reclaiming Laurel’s vintage houses “one home at a time,” has its first season of 10 episodes wrapped – with season two waiting in the wings. Episode 1 re-airs at 12 a.m. central on Wednesday, March 22.
