Dan Hoey died August 31 by his own hand. He was, recalls Rich Lynch, “one of the nicest people not only in D.C. fandom, but in fandom anywhere.”

Dan was a very active member of the Washington Science Fiction Association in the Eighties and Nineties. He chaired chaired Disclave in 1995. Since then, he had become less active. He was involved in the Potomac River Science Fiction Society (he hosted the July meeting), otherwise was rarely seen at local fan events except for Capclave. 

He worked as a mathematician, programmer, and computer science researcher. Fans who have visited Nielsenhayden.com should remember one example of his work, Hoey’s extended version of the Panama palindrome, produced by a program he coded using the Unix “spell” dictionary.

[Thanks to Rich Lynch for the story.]