Hi Everyone,

This is some very sad news I received today from Ben Ritchey's daughter.. Ben 
died on June 27th,2019.  We lost a great man this week, and I lost a great 
friend :(

Ben was a wonderful guy who worked with me from early in my fidonet career to 
the week just before he died.  He loved Fidonet and was happy to spend time 
updating not only the echolist, but the software we use to maintain our 
database of echotags and moderators.  When my own family ran into problems a 
few years ago with keeping echolist@filegate.net going, Ben was happy to help 
out by setting up a mirror at Nick's system.. That mirror continues today along 
with echolist@filegate.net.

Ben's daughter sent me a copy of Ben's obituary, you can find it here:

https://www.fountainmemorialfuneralhome.com/obituary/benjamin-dan-ritchey?lud=9
53BD8CCE1CAFA96A359635BF328BA44

We're working on getting the information we need to keep the NAB echolist up to 
date, thank you to Nick Andre for helping out with this!

With deepest sympathies to the family, and thanks to all in Fidonet who 
continue to keep the Echolist going... Janis

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-4