In the last months of his remarkable life, Tom and I exchanged e-mail and engaged in at least one telephone conversation about his resolve to attend the 50-year reunion of our high school class, the 1952 class of Central Catholic High School of East St. Louis, Illinois. Sadly, Tom died three months before the reunion, but he was with us during the reunion weekend, and will be with us for as long as we are give the grace to enjoy pleasant memories. He will be with his business and professional colleagues as much as he will be with those of us who knew him only as Tommy McEvilly, the smart kid from Holy Angels who loved to have a good time, and then as Tom McEvilly, the Numero Uno Engineering School student at St. Louis University. As the years passed, we knew of his professional success and academic distinction, but Tom was not the source of our information; he was modest and would never have let his old friends know how well-respected he was in his professional life. His death has saddened everyone who knew him, and I know that my high school classmates share my thought that probably EVERY group to which Tom had ever belonged could say "He was the best we had!".