Goodbye, Eagle One

A fan has died. Wayne Howard, aka Eagle One, operated #Wing-Commander on the DALnet (later BeyondIRC) for over ten years. It is no secret that Eagle and the CIC staff did not get along; what's less often remembered is that we were once contemporaries and friends. Eagle, ace, Bearcat, Skyfox and I ran #Wing-Commander together for several happy years in our youths.

It's hard to memorialize someone who didn't like you much. I felt bad about the situation and tried to contact him many times over the years, but was always ignored. I regret now not having done more. Nevertheless, Mr. Howard had a huge impact on my own life - and he helped create what we know as Wing Commander fandom today... including the friendships that I consider the most important in my life. I will endeavor to remember him as the kind gentleman who sent his friends candy at Christmas and who surprised me with a phone call when I was a scared boy preparing for dangerous surgery.

I don't know how many of the #Wing-Commander crew are still around, but please leave your memories at the forum - we'll collect them in the tributes section alongside those to the developers who created our universe. Eag deserves that much.