By Janice Morse
The Cincinnati Enquirer

As investigators Thursday determined that an overloaded electrical cord caused a fatal New Year's Eve fire in Newport, effects of the 10-year-old fire victim's death rippled through the Tristate:

In Batavia, where Henry Mario Romano Jr. lived with his mother, Christina, neighbors described the dark-haired, bespectacled boy as mature, bright, energetic, friendly and sensitive.

At Hyde Park's Summit Country Day Middle School, where Henry was a fifth-grader, faculty and administrators set a meeting for today to discuss how to help his schoolmates, who are on holiday break, cope with his loss when they resume classes Monday.

HOW TO HELP

• Monetary donations may be deposited at any Fifth Third Bank into the Antonio and Eugenia Zambrano account. • Donations may also be sent to the home of Henry Romano's grandmother, M. Fedak, 3860 Greenbriar Road, Batavia, OH 45103-9404.

At the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, where the boy's uncle, Antonio Zambrano, works downtown in the computer information systems department, co-workers tried to figure out what they could do to help.

Henry was unable to escape the blaze that spread through a home at 647 Nelson Place in Newport's Mansion Hill district Tuesday.

Henry's uncle, police officers and firefighters made unsuccessful attempts to rescue the boy, whose body investigators found Wednesday on the second floor of the three-story structure.

State fire marshals traced the blaze's origin to an extension cord in the basement, said Newport Fire Capt. Bill Ravenscraft.

The fire broke through the first floor and traveled up a stairwell, trapping the child.

A playmate in Batavia, 10-year-old Samantha Massengale, "couldn't understand why he didn't get out," said her grandmother, Jeanette Jones.

Henry's next-door neighbor, Doris Ward, said Henry often posed green plastic Army figures on a hillside in her yard. "He had a very vivid imagination," she said.

Relatives set Henry's funeral for Wednesday at St. Thomas More Church on Ohio 125 in Withamsville. Visitation will be 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the E.C. Nurre Funeral Home, 177 W. Main St., Amelia.