“I don’t even have a picture of him. He exists now, only in my memory.”
That famous line delivered by Rose Calvert's character in the blockbuster movie Titanic very well applies to Shari Roberts, a long-time Alaska resident who is on the hunt for a young man she met in Sault Ste. Marie 59 years ago.
While the search for her long-lost mystery crush has yet to produce a match, it hasn’t been due to a lack of persistence.
As SooToday readers learned earlier this month, Roberts travelled to the Sault on a girls trip during a late summer evening in 1965 where she met a charming gas station attendant named Bobby.
The two formed a brief but special connection through several visits at the young man’s workplace before a then 18-year-old Roberts had to return to her southern Minnesota home.
Although Bobby made additional efforts to contact her in the months and years that followed, including a hitchhiking journey he took to Roberts’ hometown of Mankato, the timing didn’t align, and they never saw each other again.
Now 77, a widow, and a proud great-grandmother, Roberts resides in Alaska with a question mark hanging over her head.
She's taken on the last name Tackett, but asked SooToday to use her maiden name Roberts to better the odds that her unique friend of the past may recognize her.
Her story has sparked a citywide search for Bobby, a passionate hockey player who was believed to be around 18 years old when Roberts drove through the Sault in her brand-new Ford Mustang all those years ago.
Of course, with a common name like his, the search has produced many local prospects named Robert, Bob and Bobby. His last name is unknown.
Both Roberts and SooToday have been notified of many potential candidates from members of the community in recent weeks.
Residents have been commenting on social media or sending old photos and descriptions of their dads, husbands, brothers, and uncles — some alive, and some who have passed — to try to help solve the mystery.
“None of them have been him yet,” Roberts said. “I don’t have any question about that.”
While the community’s efforts haven’t yet resulted in a happy ending, Roberts has been blown away by the amount of feedback she’s received from a city she spent just a few days in more than half a century ago.
“I never expected anything like this,” she said. “It shows the goodness in people. It just shocks me that they really care about the situation and want me to find him.”
“I think everybody had a teenage crush in their past they might think about once in a while,” she added. “I’m sure people wonder what happened to so and so and how their life went. At least I hope everybody has an opportunity for that.”
Some locals named Bob have popped up as recommendations more frequently than others.
Among them is Bobby Orazietti, a passionate hockey player and former Soo Greyhound who passed away at 78 in 2022.
He was married to Paula — “his first draft pick," as his obituary says — and was twin brother of the late Billy Orazietti, who has a statue and plaque on our waterfront dedicated to the sacrifice he made saving two dogs during a fatal sledding accident on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in 1994.
Bobby Orazietti’s surviving brother Joe said he received several calls asking if his sibling fit the description of Roberts’ once special acquaintance, but he managed to rule him out as a prospect immediately.
“He bought a ’64 Pontiac two-door hard top around that time,” Joe recalled. “Number one, he would never hitchhike, and number two, he had his own car. He was also married by then.”
Another former Greyhound player potentially fit the description: Bob Cuncic.
An 18-year-old quarterback on Bawating’s high school football team in 1965, Cuncic now lives with his wife, Pat, in southern Ontario. The two have been together since they were 17 and are celebrating 57 years of marriage this year.
Like so many others, they read about Roberts on SooToday.
“When we read the article I looked at him and he said: ‘No, I wouldn’t have done that,’” Pat laughed, when contacted by SooToday. “We had a few chuckles about it. It’s a lovely story, but it’s not Bob Cuncic.”
“He has no idea of anybody that it could be either,” she added. “We ran through it in our heads, but there’s so much time gone and there were a lot of Bobs at that time — it was a very popular name. And of course, everybody in the Sault loved hockey.”
“But we hope she finds who she’s looking for.”
Readers sent Roberts old photos of other Soo Greyhound players who competed alongside Cuncic, including Bob Smith and Bob Tombari. Both were unfamiliar to her.
A number of other potential hits surfaced in obituaries and Sault Star collections, but no photos or information have yet aligned with Roberts’ description.
“He could have moved away from there; he could also be dead,” she said. “One person on the Sault Ste. Marie Memories [Facebook] site said if you work in a nursing home, see if you have any Roberts or Bobbys as residents. I thought that was a good suggestion.”
Roberts describes Bobby as someone who had a big personality, a nice smile, and curly dark hair. She recalls him wearing a dark uniform when he was working at a gas station near the International Bridge in 1965.
She even plugged his features into an AI photo generator to assist with the search.
“That AI picture was pretty similar, except Bobby’s face was fuller,” she said. “I also don’t think he was as dark-skinned as that picture is.”
Although the efforts of a curious northern Ontario community haven’t produced the ultimate result yet, Roberts hasn’t lost hope.
If she discovers her Bobby — and he still lives in town — she’s even open to the idea of visiting the Sault again if they mutually agreed to meet.
“There’s always a possibility, you never know what’s going to happen or what will turn up,” she said. “I’m thinking positively; we’ve uncovered so many. There’s a lot of people who put a lot of effort into this and I really want to thank them for that.”
Readers who believe they may be able to assist Roberts in her search can email alex@sootoday.com.