Cake wasn’t on the menu at Arby’s, unfortunately.
Four teenagers were out for lunch during a free period in the school day at Prairie View High in Henderson. Zavier DeHoff and Dalton Knecht were friends by then, both juniors on the basketball team. But Knecht was an introvert at heart, and he hadn’t bothered to share that April 19 was his birthday. Well, until the most spontaneous possible moment, as if to use the news as a punchline: in the middle of a conversation halfway through a fast food meal.
“This guy just casually mentioned it was his birthday,” DeHoff recalled years later, laughing.