Ron Hebbard

I’m sure wherever he is now he’s cracking old man jokes and shaking his fist to get off his lawn. May he rest in peace.
 
Heartbreaking. Ron and I have had an internet friendship that goes back about 20 years. I had a feeling he'd not been doing well recently and I'm so sad that my gut wasn't wrong.
 
For those who don't know, Ron was a healthy guy in his late 50's, working hard in the industry until 2014. One morning he slipped in the bathroom, hit his head, and woke up with almost everything being a blur. He described it as having holes in his vision that he had to look around. He was forced to retire far too soon. He joined CB in 2004, one of CB's earliest members. Here he found a way to keep connected with the industry he loved and share his knowledge with others. He would spend his days reading CB and liking every post so he could keep track of what he had already read.

If you were lucky, you had some private message side conversations with him. He was hilarious!

@Chuck Learn @TimMc or others, please let me know if my dates are off in this post or if I got details wrong.
 
Oh no. I never met him but had many short conversations with him by personal message. He seemed an irascible rascal with a wry sense of humour and a terrific store of memories. He will be greatly missed, and I send my condolences to his family and friends.
 
Ron was an incredibly bright light in the CB community. Due to his injury in 2014, reading each post took him a long time due to his very limited eyesight. It took even longer for him to type a reply; he literally typed around five words a minute on a good day. You'd never know it from his posts; they were always delightful and rarely succinct; he freely shared his technical theatre knowledge accumulated over 50-plus years of working in the industry. The amount of time and love he put into each post is astounding, given how much work it took for him to read and type. Every post, PM, or email he sent always ended the same way, and now it's our turn to give a final farewell. Toodleoo Ron! We'll see you at the big dimmer beach in the sky someday.
 
I was inspired to look back through the messages Ron had sent over the years. Like many of you all, I suspect that he caught a word or two of something you posted and had to send you his special brand of insight. With what @dvsDave said, it makes it all the more special knowing he took the time in spite of his hurdles. I found two that I think encapsulate what Ron was to me, the first I'll paraphrase- he made a joke about my post on a "DMX Shield" for an Arduino I built, asking if it were some type of digital prophylactic.

The second was more sincere, and 100% Ron. Here's a bit of it, which was prompted by an off-handed comment I made about my part-time gig "moon lighting" for a church:
To tie this back to your term "moon lighting": I lit my first production with the group to return a favor to a friend, found I really enjoyed working with folks who appeared to appreciate me, in an environment where I wasn't part of any of the politics and petty bickering routinely ripe within the majority of amateur theatrical groups and rapidly found myself enjoying working with the people resulting in my lighting both their productions, spring and fall, for some twenty productions along with lighting them from my second show onwards. I was never a member of their congregation although I rapidly became friends with the aging caretaker and was soon changing fluorescent tubes and ballasts for him rather then watching them flicker themselves to a long and painful death along with the nasty groaning of their ballasts. The church had soon given me my own key to their building along with my own alarm code when they eventually added an alarm. Had something deep within my skull not painlessly erupted in my sleep one Saturday night / Sunday morning, I'd still be doing lighting and sound with the group to this day. I spent many a long night in their building but primarily under moonlight rather than sunshine thus: "moonlighting in a church"; I'd never thought of it that way 'til you posted your term.
Guard your health at Strad'. My alarm's calling me to my mandatory 2nd sitting lunch, gotta go without so much as a proof read. Sure hope this doesn't vaporize when I hit the "Start a Conversation" button.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
Click to expand...

I'll always remember Ron for his humor and his willingness to be helpful and kind whatever the odds.

Toodleoo Ron!
 
Very sad to hear. A terrific contributor here on CB, always had good stories and memories as well as useful experiences shared with the younger generation. One of our finest and important members. R.I.P Ron and thank you for all your posts.
 
A few fun things from my private messages with Ron:

There was an error in a post from 8 years ago...
Screenshot_20230723-185302.png

And 8 year old post, How about an 11 year old post! 🤣

Screenshot_20230723-185737.png

Screenshot_20230723-185127.png

Also he once had a post joking about the Queen stepping on an IED that I had to delete because it was just a bit over the line 😳😁
 
Ron and I never met in person but we discovered through posts on this forum that we had many friends in common through connections to the Western Ontario Drama League. Our small world got a little smaller today.

Toodleoo, Ron!

edited to add: I have a few of those correction PMs too, the last one wanting me to fix a grammatical error on a web page that I linked to in a post.
 
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We will be holding a Virtual Wake for Ron on Tuesday, July 25th at 10 pm (Eastern). The link is at the top of the page (need to be logged in to see it).
It's Bring Your Own Drink, so we can all raise at toast to our fallen brother.
 
gafftaper said:
A few fun things from my private messages with Ron:

There was an error in a post from 8 years ago...
View attachment 24628

And 8 year old post, How about an 11 year old post! 🤣

View attachment 24630

View attachment 24629

Also there was this post joking about the Queen stepping on an IED that I had to delete because it was just a bit over the line 😳😁
Click to expand...
Pretty much all my PM's are exactly this... says two things... I don't use PM's here... and Ron would always PM you before he posted publicly. He'll be missed. Lots of knowledge just left this plain of existence.
 
Thank you Ron for everything you did, everything you shared with us. Even though we never met in person I can see your smile, hear your laugh, and feel your concern and passion about so many things. You will be sorely missed by your family here. Who's going to correct my typos and keep me abreast of the situation "North of the wall"?
 
My only personal interaction with Ron came with him telling me to make a post in the new member forum in 2020, even though I've been a member since 2013 I wasn't very active until the pandemic started. It always added a bit of legitimacy to my posts to see that Ron had interacted with them. As a lurker it was obvious what Ron was and is to this community. A loss that will be felt for quite sometime.
 
Dang it. Ill definitely miss Ron, a man I never met but came to know and enjoy from afar.

For memories sake, I looked back at my PM's and have forgotten how many times he and I connected, or in this case, couldn't connect cause of the tRUMP. ;)

1690217511557.png
 
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