ROBERTA "BOBBIE" DRAPER

DRAPER Roberta Horning Draper "Bobbie" (Age 88) Passed on Tuesday, October 25, 2021 at Sunrise Assisted Living on Connecticut Avenue. She called herself a "newspaperman" in the male dominated newspaper world of the 1950s. Bobbie began her career with other copy boys at the once dominant Washington Evening Star. She soon became the one female general reporter. She broke the story that the Kennedy White House was planting rows of rhododendrons to shied the John-John play area from prying eyes. This angered the President so much that he asked The Star to fire her. She wasn't fired. Later the President visited The Star giving her flowers to make amends. She covered lady Bird Johnson's beautification project. She saw it as a big local story which led her into national environmental and energy reporting. This included a nine-part series that The Star sold to 200 newspapers. The Star closed in 1981 as a last major evening paper trying to complete with the TV network evening news. Bobbie began a career at NBC News covering the Senate. The same year, she married Morris Draper. Mr. Draper was appointed by Ronald Regan as a special envoy to the peace process in Beirut. In 1983 Bobbie accompanied her husband to Beirut. They were to meet in the embassy on the day it was bombed killing 63 people. Safely attending a meeting elsewhere, Morris raced back to the embassy to see if Bobbie was dead or alive. He spotted her returning from the hairdresser and their relieved embrace was captured on film and became the next Time magazine cover. In 1986 Morris was appointed as the US Consulate General to Jerusalem. The Drapers lived in Jerusalem for three years. Bobbie worked with her husband to find ways to get polarized Arabs and Jews to meet and socialize. When the couple returned to Washington, she worked for a short time for Senator Alan Cranston. She was rehired and returned to work for NBC as a producer for the Evening News. Her outgoing personality allowed her to cultivate sources with ease on both sides of the aisle. She loved working at the Senate. In her retirement years she would say the Senate she knew is no more. Her survivors included a stepdaughter, and two stepsons, Courtney Geer of Montross, Virginia, Blair Draper, of Angel Fire, New Mexico, and Jonathan Draper of Newport News, Virginia, and a niece Opal Seicshnaydre of New Orleans, Louisiana and her beloved Abyssinian cat, Habibi. A graveside service will be held at Rock Creek Cemetery, Monday, November 1, at 1 p.m. A celebration of her life will be held at a later date. Online condolences may be sent to www.devolfuneralhome.com.www.devolfuneralhome.com.