Rockingham County, Va. residents Karen Sampson and Kenneth Gentry are proud of how they’ve gotten by since their exes split, skipping out on tens of thousands in child support.
But now that both of their former partners have made the state’s most-wanted list for back child support, they’re hoping things might get a little easier.
Sampson’s ex-husband, Keith Alan Raines, a 1986 West Point grad, owes her nearly $50,000 in back payments for their two boys, now teenagers.
She says she and state officials have tracked him through West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina, but he hasn’t made a payment in years.
“I work. I do not sit at home and collect a welfare check,” Sampson said. “I am also very fortunate because I have a family that, when I get in a bind, will help.”
Sampson acknowledges it is “humbling” to ask her parents to help out on occasion, although she says they’ve happily bought football cleats for her older son and paid for piano lessons for her younger one.
“My kids haven’t wanted for basic food or shelter,” Sampson said. “But, you go to WalMart, they want such and such, and you don’t know what to say because you’re counting every dime and you don’t know if a payment will appear and when.”
Gentry’s ex-wife, Wendy Marie Gentry, has been arrested many times – owing thousands in child support – but gets released every time under orders to get current with her payments. She owes $23,000 for their two boys.
He too worked hard — going from press operator to a technician to supervisor at a local packaging company — so he wouldn’t have to worry whether she’d pay up.
His boys do motorcross, an expensive sport that requires costly bikes, equipment and travel to compete. They’re teens now, and he knows he should have college accounts for them, but that would mean no extracurricular activities.
There’s a bigger concern too for both Sampson and Gentry. When deadbeat parents skip out on child support, they usually skip town too, leaving kids without emotional support as well.
“They never ask no questions or say nothing about it,” Gentry said. “But above all, I do have concerns about what [my children will] think: ‘Why would my mother abandon me? Why wouldn’t she help support me or have any contact with me?’ I do worry about that.”
