Bruce Venter
We must take time to remember our good friend and business partner, Dave Hinze who left us suddenly one year ago on August 18, 2010.
But this one year anniversary is not the only day that I think of Dave. On our kitchen countertop, we have a 3×4 framed picture of Dave and me doing the Swamp Fox tour in South Carolina in 2009. The tour was Dave’s brainchild (he was crazy about Francis Marion) and so far it’s been the most successful tour of either Stars & Stripes Events or America’s History. The picture shows me lecturing to our tour group about the British Navy’s 1776 attack on Charleston’s Fort Moultrie where Marion was stationed as an officer long before his famous career as a partisan. I’m pointing with my left arm extended out to the harbor where the Royal Navy was firing round shot at the fort. Dave, with his head down looking at a map, is mimicking me by also pointing with his left arm extended out to the Charleston harbor. It was so characteristic of Dave, making sure everyone understood what was going on.