>On Friday, September 16, 2005, Drew Speedie and his son, Brent, fell a few hundred feet to their deaths from a bridge in Yellowstone Park. The Speedie family was on vacation there. Details of this tragedy are extremely limited at this time.
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>Drew was a friend and a valued member of the Visionpace team. He was the architect and primary developer of the Visual Maxframe Professional VFP framework and a frequent speaker at Fox conferences in North America and Europe and was often accompanied by Brent and his wife, Irene.
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>Questions or concerns should be directed to Russ Swall (rswall@visionpace.com) or by phone, 816-350-7900 or 888-904-7900.

I first heard of Drew Speedie when I started learning FoxPro in 1996, and began subscribing to the FoxPro Advisor magazine. At the time he was just another face in a magazine -- someone a guy like me, laboring away in obscurity, would likely never meet. As I became more involved in VFP and "his" framework, Visual Maxframe Professional (VMP), and later met him at conferences, I got to know him fairly well. He always expressed appreciation for any suggestion anyone gave him. He responded to everyone's questions and comments, and treated everyone as an equal, or better. Not only was he a talented developer, but he was an extremely good teacher, not only in his speaking and writing, but also in the way he thoroughly documented his source code, both what it was doing and why. I learned a great deal from him, as I know many others have. Drew's devotion to his family was also something we could learn from. It was apparent that they all enjoyed each others company, and respected one another. Brent was a great kid, too. Always polite and friendly when I saw him. I will certainly miss them both. My sympathies go out to Irene, and our prayers will be with her in the difficult days and months ahead. May she look to God, who is our strength in times of trouble.