Whatever Happened To ...


Bobby Krotendorfer is helping his girlfriend raise their son and her daughters.


four hours a day, five days a week, to construction jobs that pay him an hourly wage. Any other children in your and


Lori’s future? he is asked. “I don’t think so,” he says. “We’re


using condoms.” It’s fortunate that he’s employed


because Lori, previously a waitress at Waldorf ’s Lone Star Steakhouse Restaurant, lost her job when the establishment closed. She says she’s now taking college courses online in order to become a medical assistant. “We’re together, and I’m glad for


the most part,” she says of herself and Bobby. Bobby says, “We have our little fights, but we’ve been getting along.” They still live with Lori’s father, Pete


... Bobby, the teen dad who was trying his best


by Laura SeSSionS Stepp at 10:30 on a recent Sunday morning, Bobby Krotendorfer, 22, is trying to get his son dressed for church while talking to a reporter on the telephone. “Come on, now,” he says to his


3-year-old namesake, Rob, also known as “Junior.” “No, we can’t play with the cars. Let’s get this shirt on.” Rob, he explains, “is into race cars. He’s got this whole Mustang thing going on right now.”


Early last year, Bobby, a high


For the original story, go to washingtonpost.com/magazine.


school dropout, was profiled in The Washington Post Magazine. Laid off from his job as a manual laborer and living in Waldorf, he spent his days taking care of Junior and the two young daughters of his girlfriend, Lori Ball, 23, with whom he lived. Statistics on young, unmarried


fathers such as Bobby suggested that after the birth of his son, he wouldn’t have stayed with the family more than a year. In fact, he did leave for a while after the Post article ran. But he returned about a year ago and is working hard again at being a dad and a breadwinner, driving three to


Ball. Bobby’s “a good man,” says Pete, adding that he especially appreciates that Bobby is helping to raise Lori’s two girls, Faith, 6, and Hope, 4, “as if they were his own.” To which Bobby, when he hears


that, replies, “You can’t love one without loving the other.” With his family assembled to leave


for church, Bobby says he has to go. Rob is demanding some chocolate milk, so Bobby quickly pours milk into a go-cup. “One for the road!” he tells his son as they head for the car.


Curious?


Tell us what past Washington Post story or person in the news you want us to update. e-mail trents@ washpost.com or call 202-334-4208.


want to hear what you have to say about important causes just because you have a shiny hat on your head. I didn’t pick AIDS as my platform;


it picked me. I lost my uncle to AIDS when I was 8 years old. When he was very, very sick, I remember watching a video of when he took us to Disney World and wanting him to come watch it with me. He wheeled himself out of bed, came in and started crying. I


didn’t know until then that he had lost his vision and could only hear all the memories. At that moment I knew that I never wanted any little girl to have her favorite uncle go through anything close to that. My family started the Faces Project, and my mom went to high schools, churches, wherever, to speak about the stigma of the disease and prevention. When I became Miss Virginia, I just kept talking, and


more and more people were listening because of that shiny-hat effect. I’m going back to school next year,


as a broadcast journalism major. It would be so nice if this all would have counted as on-the-job credit and they’d just hand me my diploma. But I am looking forward to putting on my sweats, my hoodie and my glasses and getting lost in the crowd of 20,000 students.


december 26, 2010 | The WashingTon PosT Magazine 3


PHOTOGRAPH BY REBECCA DROBIS


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