Jamestown Marine killed by bomb in Iraq

A mid-Missouri Marine was killed in the line of duty in Iraq on Saturday.

Leon Deraps, a 2005 graduate of Jamestown High School in Moniteau County, was a part of the Marines 7th Engineer Support Battalion.

A report on STLtoday.com, an online product of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said he was killed by a roadside bomb while on duty in Fallujah.

A staff sergeant at the Marine Corps recruiting office in Columbia said he could release no details about Deraps’ death. He referred telephone calls to Camp Pendleton, Calif. A lieutenant there said she could release no information Monday because policy prohibits statements until 24 hours after the family has been notified.

Deraps was the son of Dale and Sandy Deraps, of Jamestown, and the grandson of Leon “Bud” Deraps, of St. Louis. Bud Deraps is a member of Veterans for Peace who is well-known in the St. Louis area for his anti-war protests.

Bud Deraps said his grandson was a bright boy who did well in school and was an Eagle Scout.

“I was really proud of him for everything he did,” Deraps said in a telephone interview Monday afternoon.

Other members of the Deraps family in Jamestown said Monday that they would neither talk about nor release information about Leon Deraps’ death until today.

Jim Deeken, superintendent of Moniteau County C-1 School District, said he remembers Deraps as “an extremely polite, very respectful young man, the kind that you would expect would find his way into the armed forces.”

He said Deraps was a member of FFA and played on the Jamestown High School baseball team.