Closed Album Don Denman

From a post by Mike Ludeman on Philamercury...dreadful news...

Don Denman

The philatelic community has lost another significant figure. Don Denman passed away on March 17 after a long battle with cancer. His obituary is here.

I don't know how many regulars on this Board were acquainted with Don Denman and his Stamp Smarter Learning Center website. It was one of the largest privately owned and operated websites in the philatelic community, and provided content ranging from "how-to" hints for beginning collectors, to a massive stamp plating project for the US 1 cent and 3 cent US issues from 1851-1857.

Don was honored by the American Philatelic Society with the Kehr Award in 2019 for his work with the Stamp Smarter website.

It was also my host site for all of the USPOD publications which Tony Wawrukiewicz and I had digitized, edited, and placed online, including the Official Postal Guides, Postal Manual, Postal Service Manual, and a variety of earlier and later publications.

Don had been battling cancer for nearly ten years. He beat it several times, even to the extent that he qualified for a kidney transplant in July 2022, which released him from a seven year stint of three times a week dialysis. He was making great progress until his cancer agressively returned at the beginning of the year, possibly because of the immunotheraphy necessary because of the transplant weakened his resistance.

Early this year, I worked with Don to establish the Stamp Smarter Foundation, a tax-exempt educational 501(c)3 foundation established to support the Stamp Starter Learning Center website into the future. Sadly, Don never saw the final step of the Foundation formation, as the IRS tax-exempt letter was received two days after his death. I hope to continue to wrok with his wife, Dawn, to help the Foundation keep the website online for the future.

Mike Ludeman

I think you may not have followed the news here, lately.

http://goscf.com/t/86478&whichpage=1

You're right. Mike's post was the first I heard of it and my level of shock was pretty high, especially in light of all the recent major-philatelist losses of late (Nancy Clark, Rand Neil, for eg).

(Moderators feel free to remove this tardy thread, if so desired).

There will be no tardy threads with respect to Don. We should all feel free to post anecdotes of our interactions with Don for as long we can.

But following up on Mike Ludeman's post I would like more explicit information on the formal name and address of the Stamp Smarter Foundation and whether it is now officially open to accept tax exempt charitable contributions.

I will briefly respond to this.

We are not quite ready to deal with the mechanics of accepting tax-exempt donations to the Stamp Smarter Foundation at this time, although all the legal issues have been resolved.

Donations can always be made via the PayPal donation button on the home page of the Stamp Smarter website, just scroll down to the middle of the page. Because Don's wife is the only one with access to that account ,and she is not in the position to acknowledge receipts at the present time, your receipt acknowledging your donation will be delayed. Please include a note with the PayPal donation indicating that you would like a receipt and tell us where to send it.

Once we get past the current situation, and have an opportunity to put all our procedures in place, we will make a more detailed announcement about the Stamp Smarter Foundation here on the Stamp Community Family forum, either in a new thread, or in the earlier thread Don started several weeks ago when he announced the Foundation. Please give us time to deal with the shock.

Please continue to post your remembrances and experiences with Don and Stamp Smarter here in the present thread. I am sure that Dawn will obtain comfort in reading how Don affected and influenced the philatelic community with Stamp Smarter and his role as Moderator here at SCF.

Mike Ludeman

A few days ago member txtstamp posted the interview that Don had a couple of years ago, (you Tube). Well worth watching, Don carefully explained his vision of online philately and his vision of the future of philately. I was impressed with his clarity and insight of that intersection between the two. I do virtually nothing online. It was not a topic that I have engaged. Obviously Don has given a great deal of thought and effort towards that future. I made a contribution to Stampsmarter in his honor and memory, so that future will continue. I am sorry for his friends, his family and those who knew and respected him.
m

mml1942 posted:






I wish to point out the now sticky thread about Stampsmarter.com can be found in the General Philatelic Discussions at the top or here: http://goscf.com/t/86402

ALL comments and questions about the Stamp Smarter Foundation and website should be place in that thread. That thread will be monitored and used by the person or folks handling the SSF pass off from Don.

Edit: Thank you for posting in the SSF thread mml1942.
2nd Edit: to add "and website" above.