Rich DellaRosa / August 17, 1947 - March 8, 2010 Rich DellaRosa was such a principled man who never gave up and who carried the torch until the very end. That will surely be a distinguishing part of his legacy. It's his eternal flame. When Rich first started the forum it was like an oasis in the desert. The World Wide Web was brand new back then-just a few years in existence. Yet many various so-called "news groups" had sprung up and several were dedicated to the JFK assassination. But the most prominent one was what we used to refer to as "the nut house" - And the few others were really no better. They ran asylums over there-where ad hominem personal attacks were tolerated by the administrators and even encouraged by the moderators. It was as though arguing for its own sake was the rule. The policy of moderating posts in those news groups was seemingly arbitrary, and was tantamount to censorship. So, Rich envisioned a FORUM instead of a news group environment. His vision was important because he realized the power of the internet and the www - not only its ability to reach a huge audience, but its ability to allow researchers a visual medium. The internet was only now becoming readily available to the common man and it was important to Rich that the photographic and film evidence be widely distributed, widely analyzed, and easily accessible to the best researchers so that they could upload their work for peer review and general dissemination. One of the researchers for whom Rich was particularly interested in providing such a venue, because of his efforts in the arena of photographic analysis, was Jack White. Jack has studied the photographic evidence for nearly 50 years. He was an expert witness for the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 70's-and 13 years ago was somewhat frustrated by the limitations of the internet-at least the news group format at that time. There were several reasons for this frustration. Some were technical and some were political. So, Rich stepped up to the plate in a very big way. He started a forum that was designed to be "top shelf" technologically, allowing image uploading for analysis of the photographic and film evidence. But, equally important-maybe even more important-Rich established a forum policy that was unprecedented at the time. It was based on his profound appreciation of FREEDOM of SPEECH above all else. However, he recognized that along with freedom comes responsibility. He was wise enough to know that there are those who will abuse that "freedom" and use speech as a weapon against those with whom they might not agree; against those they would prefer to silence; or as a means to derail an inquiry that they or their masters found threatening. Whatever the reasons for that type of abuse of logic, language, and free speech-Rich didn't care-the rule was the rule: no personal attacks on his forum. You can attack ideas, methods, even conclusions, but not the person, nor the person's intentions or background-in other words, it was a "flame free zone" -and it was the first of its kind. As a demonstration of his dedication to promoting free speech, he allowed participation of both conspiracy oriented researchers and researchers who believed that Oswald acted alone on the forum. This was important because he followed the same rules of engagement for both camps, even though he was himself not ambivalent as to which point of view was worthy of merit. Today the JFKresearch Assassination Forum is one of the best resources for both veteran and novice researchers. I am grateful for having known you, Rich DellaRosa. I am honored to have worked with you and proud to have fought the good fight back to back with you. GO_SECURE Greg Burnham