Late last week, as many in our community now know, we lost another member of the ARDC community: Dewayne Hendricks WA8DZP.

Obtaining his amateur radio license at the age of 12, Dewayne once stated that he “was amazed at the many things I could accomplish with radios and the people who use them.” One of these accomplishments goes back to the early days of amateur radio TCP/IP, when he made a name for himself by porting KA9Q NOS to the 68k Mac. A self-proclaimed Serial Entrepreneur, Dewayne became known as the Broadband Cowboy, as he played a significant role in bringing wireless broadband networks to many countries all over the world.

He continued that work at ARDC through his work on the Grants Advisory Committee (GAC), which he served on for three years. There, he supported getting many international projects funded. The one he noted being the most proud of was the Slippers2Sat project, which supports bringing Nepalese students – particularly those from underrepresented, marginalized, and/or low-caste communities – to space technology through hands-on opportunities. After his time on the GAC, he was a part of the inaugural Grants Evaluation Team (GET), which evaluated the progress and impacts of our grantmaking activities. For those of us who worked with him on these committees, it was clear how much Dewayne loved ARDC and having a role of carrying out our mission throughout the amateur radio community.

Fellow GAC colleague and long time friend Steve Stroh N8GNJ wrote a tribute to Dewayne in his weekly newsletter, Zero Retries. If you’d like to learn a bit more about Dewayne and his accomplishments, please take a moment to read: https://www.zeroretries.org/p/zero-retries-0170?open=false#%C2%A7my-thanks-to-dewayne-hendricks-wadzp.

On a personal note, I really enjoyed working with Dewayne and always appreciated his perspective and passion. It had been my hope that we would have many more years of collaboration together. It saddens me that we will not have that time, and also, I am incredibly grateful for the time that we did have together and for the impact that his contributions are continuing to make in the realm of amateur radio.

On behalf of everyone here at ARDC, we extend our sympathies to Dewayne’s family, friends, and all of those who knew him. He is greatly missed by us all.