Remembering Bobby
By Dirk Chatelain
World-Herald staff writer
Editor's Note: Dirk Chatelain, a news-editorial major and Omaha World-Herald intern wrote this story for The World-Herald in September. It is reprinted by permission.
There he was, surrounded by 30 little girls in their girly sequins and girly spandex. The 8-year-old boy with a blond buzz cut looked out of place at the halftime show of a Creighton basketball game.
Bobby Foehlinger performs at last year's Nebraska-McNeese State game.
So we watched. In front of a packed house, the music started and Bobby Foehlinger smiled. He always smiled.
While the others danced, he started doing back flips and cartwheels, flipping his baton through the air and catching it behind his back. Just to add a little pizazz.
Remember? We couldn't take our eyes off of him.
He was so young.
Thirteen years later, after that fateful Friday night, we said the same thing.
"I'm sure there's a plan somewhere," family friend Gregg Christensen said, "but I don't know what it is other than he's left a legacy beyond anything you can imagine."
Starting young
Crayons. French fries. Anything that resembled a baton, he twirled it.
Growing up, he shadowed his older twin sisters, Tina and Tami. They twirled, so he did, too. Bobby's mother, Sue, has been a twirling and dance instructor for 30 years in Omaha. Bobby was a natural from the time he was in diapers.
The Omaha native won a junior world championship at age 12, a men's title at 18 and another in April. By the time he started twirling for the Cornhusker marching band in 2001, he was doing stunts and tricks nobody else in the world could do.
Twirling requires balance and hand-eye coordination. Athleticism and showmanship. Bobby had all of it. "I don't think there's much question he liked to show off," his dad said.
By the time Bobby was in college, he had friends in every corner of campus.
"He was one of those who was going to lead whether he wanted to or not," said Tony Falcone, Nebraska's marching band director.
He battled narcolepsy, which causes uncontrollable sleepiness, with constant activity. We knew him as president of the Student Alumni Association; Bible study leader; Delta Tau Delta fraternity brother; national officer of DECA, a student marketing organization; and motivational speaker.
A close-knit group of about 400 in Omaha knew him as a teacher. Bobby choreographed every routine this spring for Sue's Stepper-ettes, his mom's dance and twirling studio.
He wanted to be a sportscaster in California. Or a national speaker. "He was destined to do great things long after the baton was gone," Falcone says.
'Just getting started'
On May 9, the day before sister Tina's college graduation ceremony, 21-year-old Bobby was southbound on Interstate 29 just north of Kansas City. About 7 p.m., a car traveling north lost control and hit a guardrail before swerving back across the Interstate into the median.
An embankment launched the 1995 Oldsmobile airborne. It landed on Bobby's car.
A state patrolman knocked on the Foehlingers' door at midnight.
We filled the gymnasium at Ralston for his funeral, about 2,200 people. Little kids who wanted to be like Bobby. DECA alumni from all over the country. Twirlers from Washington, D.C.
"To lose Bob, how young he was and how many people he connected with," said Christensen, the state adviser for Nebraska DECA, "it's the toughest thing I've ever gone through."
Memory is a blessing.
In the weeks before the national championships in July, Sue's Stepper-ettes worked harder than ever. They had a purpose. The twirlers Bobby helped coach typically were happy winning one event at nationals. They won seven.
At the end of the competition, the crowd at Notre Dame's Edmund Joyce Center gave Bobby a standing ovation.
Memory is painful.
The hardest part, Bob Sr. says, is that Bobby had no limits. "I tend to think he was just getting started."
On Sept. 24, we'll gather again to hold a candlelight vigil. Tonight at Memorial Stadium, we'll watch a halftime tribute. His sisters will twirl in the band. His family will come back for the first time to his grandest stage.
Bobby was supposed to be the band's lone twirler this season. It would've been his show. Instead, the position is vacant.
Falcone, the band director, always knew where Bobby was on the field from the "oohs" and "aahs" of the crowd.
"Nobody could've filled those shoes," he said.
Always smiling
There's a video from about two years ago of Bobby speaking to high school students in Georgia. He's telling them about his three steps to success: set goals, take risks, work harder than everybody else.
The crowd of about 1,000 is only mildly interested until he pulls out a baton.
He's dressed in navy slacks, a blue shirt and tie, and the ceiling can't be higher than 20 feet. He turns on some twirling music and starts performing.
This audience of restless teenagers starts roaring. The camera is fixed on Bobby. We can't see the kids, but, oh, can we hear them. He smiles. He always smiled.
His tombstone reads: "Believe in yourself and follow your dreams."
Remember.
