Hank Reinhardt died this morning

At Toni Weisskopf's request, I alerted the Baen's Bar folks with this post this morning:

I got the call from Danielle a little bit ago. Toni asked that I let everyone here know that Hank died this morning.

I dove into work for a bit so I could buy time to compose myself.

Hank was a good guy, a vibrant man full of energy and life. Sometime in the past year, I can't remember exactly when, he, Toni, Dave Drake, Jo Drake, Jennie Faries, and I shared a lovely meal at a kitchen table in the Angus Barn. Afterward, he showed us prototypes of a new line of practice weapons he was debuting. He was excited and hopeful and ready to launch this new project. He was that way every time I saw him.

Some men are insecure around powerful women. Hank was not; he knew himself, and he knew Toni. At WorldCon in LA, Toni and I were meeting in the living room of their suite about 2:30 in the morning. Hank came out, saw us, said, "Still working?", and when Toni replied yes, he nodded and headed back to sleep.

Toni will be incommunicado for a while. I know she takes all of our good wishes with her during this extraordinarily hard time.

I'm replicating it here to get the word out to more people.

Those who'd like to see a picture of that dinner can find it on Dave Drake's Web site; just follow the link and scroll down a bit.

I hate that this happened to Hank, and I feel horrible for Toni. If you know Toni, you know she's had a brutal last year and a half. This sucks.