A Message from SOF President John Hamill
Dear Members and Friends of the SOF:
I bear tragic news.
Tom Regnier, former President of our Fellowship, Oxfordian of the Year in 2016, and our dear friend and colleague, passed away Tuesday, April 14, from complications of the Covid-19 coronavirus.
We are devastated by this loss. We in the SOF are privileged to be, in a sense, Tom’s extended family, united by our common love for the author “Shakespeare” and our fascination with that author’s identity.
Many of you have seen Tom speak in one of his wonderful authorship lectures, either in person or on our YouTube channel. I, like many of you, became his good personal friend.
There is so much more we will say and do to honor and mourn our friend, and in due time celebrate his life and work, as we learn more from Tom’s family and closest loved ones and respect their time of grief. (Update: Tom’s full SOF obituary is now available here, with links to other relevant items as well.)
Tom was hospitalized with coronavirus symptoms on Thursday, April 2, and went on ventilator support several days later. His condition stabilized and we held out hope he would recover, but as days went by his status worsened again.
The message we received from Tom’s family on April 14 noted that he was a dear friend to many, that Tom felt all our love, and that “his wish would be that you cherish what time you have left in this world and live it like he did, full of life, laughter, hard work, and love.”
I will only add briefly here what you already know: Tom was an outstanding human being. He was a powerful guiding force for the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship and for the Oxfordian movement worldwide. We were very lucky to have him with us. Tom was truly a Renaissance Man. He was a successful lawyer in southern Florida, an actor, writer, researcher, presenter, Shakespeare lover, and so much more.
Recalling Tom’s love of acting, many of us enjoyed his brief performances at the end of our SOF conferences. I think of these lines he once quoted from A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
Tom will be sorely missed.
John Hamill
President, Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship
[published April 16, 2020, updated 2021]
