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NEWPORT - Friends and family have wondered if Barry Cowsill, in the midst of a personal crisis, might have used the tumult of Hurricane Katrina to disappear for a while.
But it's a notion they quickly dismiss for two main reasons: One is named Keira and the other is named Collin. They are Cowsill's teenage children from his second marriage - he also has an older daughter, a stepdaughter and two grandchildren with whom he has stayed close - and, according to those who know him, they are the focal point of his life.
"Barry would never take off without talking to his kids," said friend Kevan Campbell, who owns Billy Goode's in Newport. "He would never go into hiding like that, because of his kids, not a chance. His kids were his life."
Deborah Cowsill was married to Barry from 1987 to about a year ago, and the two have remained friends. She lives in Carmel, Calif., with Keira, 17, and Collin, 15.
"He is a good dad, even when he's a little out there, and he really loves the kids," she said. "And they are close to their father."
Her ex-husband's problems, she said, include drinking and depression. She wonders if the ensuing madness of the hurricane overwhelmed him.
"He could be in a mental hospital or something, just out of it," she said. "He was in a bad way just before the hurricane and maybe he just lost it."
Susan Cowsill, Barry's sister, said her brother can be impulsive. "If he was going to take off, he'd let someone know," she said. "He might go off to work a year on a shrimp boat for Adventure No. 675. But he would tell us. And he is a man with three kids and two grandchildren. He wouldn't just take off on them and have them worrying for no good reason."
Deborah Cowsill said it is unlikely her ex-husband would intentionally vanish for two months.
"But that in a way is what I'm hoping," she said. "If that was the case, I wouldn't be mad at him at all, as long as he was back."
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